Influential cardinal in Latin America

Aloisio Lorscheider, 83, one of Latin America’s most influential cardinals, died Sunday at a hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, according to a statement by the Aparecida Archdiocese, which did not announce the cause of death. Lorscheider was hospitalized in early December with a heart condition.

A two-time president of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, Lorscheider played an influential role in the two conclaves to elect pontiffs in 1978. After the death of Pope Paul VI, Lorscheider reportedly helped muster the votes of Third World cardinals to back Albino Luciani, the patriarch of Venice, who became Pope John Paul I. When he died just 33 days after his election, Lorscheider pushed for the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland, who became Pope John Paul II.

The son of German immigrants, Lorscheider was born in Brazil on Oct. 8, 1924. He was ordained a priest in 1948 and studied dogmatic theology in Rome.

He spent much of the 1950s teaching in Brazil and was elevated to bishop of the local diocese of Santo Angelo in 1962. A strong voice against poverty in Brazil, Lorscheider was elevated to cardinal in May 1976 by Pope Paul VI.

Lorscheider’s activist leanings eventually would run counter to the conservative views of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI.

In 1994, Lorscheider was taken hostage for several hours with 12 other people at knifepoint by several inmates during a jail break in the northern Brazilian city of Fortaleza. All were released unharmed.