Cardinal Jorge Maria Mejia z”l

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As a teacher of Sacred Scripture in Argentina, Father Mejia realized that to have greater familiarity with Biblical Hebrew it was important to know modern Hebrew. He enrolled at an institute in Buenos Aires where modern Hebrew was taught. He also met in those years Rabbi Leon Klenicki and the two arranged pioneering meetings for Catholic and Jewish students and professors.

A year after the creation of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews in 1974, Mejia became the secretary. His friend Rabbi Klenicki, was in charge of Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations in the Anti-Defamation League. They organized a first meeting of rabbis and Catholic experts in Bogotá.

Mejia was ordained a bishop in 1986 and served in the Council for Justice and Peace. That same year, he played a key role in organizing the first visit of a pope to a synagogue, when Saint John Paul II visited the synagogue in Rome.

In 1994, Mejía was named Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops. Five days later, he was appointed Secretary of the College of Cardinals. On 7 March 1998, he became both the archivist and the librarian of the Vatican Secret Archives.

Mejia was made a cardinal in 2001. From 2001, he was asked to head the Catholic delegation for dialogue with representatives of the Grand Rabbinate of Israel. In 2003, he retired as archivist and librarian.

On 13 March 2013, Mejía suffered a heart attack on the same day his fellow Argentine and friend Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis visited him in hospital.