Cuba sends a new envoy to the Vatican

On Dec. 23, 2013, Pope Francis accepted the credentials of Rodney Alejandro López Clemente, Cuba’s new ambassador to the Holy See. López replaces Eduardo Delgado Bermúdez, who held the post since 2009.

The new ambassador has a long and varied career. A psychology major at the University of Havana, he became vice president of the National Council of Youth Technical Brigades (1966-68) and editor of the magazine Technical Youth.

Later, he became assistant secretary of the National Committee of the Union of Communist Youths and deputy editor of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (1968-73). From 1973 to 1975, he directed the Youth Research Center.

López joined the Foreign Ministry in 1975 and was assigned to the Cuban Embassy in India as a first secretary and later advisor. From there, he went to Afghanistan to serve as advisor from 1978 to 1979.

He returned to Havana and remained at the Foreign Ministry as department head from 1980 to 1982. Then he returned to eastern Europe to serve as ambassador to Romania from 1983 to 1988. After a four-year stay at home, he was appointed ambassador to Germany (1992-95), a post that was followed by an ambassadorship to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (1995-2000).

Returning to Havana in 2000, López became director for European diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry until 2003, when he was named Cuba’s permanent representative to the United Nations (2003-05). From there, he went to Italy as Cuba’s ambassador (2005-09), then returned to Havana to resume his post as director for European diplomacy (2010-12).

Before being appointed to the Holy See, he was ambassador-at-large at the Cuban Foreign Ministry (2012-2013).

His personal dossier, supplied by the Vatican, is brief. He was born on May 3, 1946, is married and has two children.