In Pace Christi

Miguel Ángel was born in Seville (Spain) on 17th June 1952, into a large and deeply Catholic family. Andalusian culture, with strong Islamic influences, entered his blood and strongly affected his sensitivity, mixing inextricably with the clear Christian faith of his father, Juan de Dios Ayuso Rubio, and mother Natividad Guixot Visconti who were blessed with nine children, of whom Miguel Ángel was the fifth.
After primary school, Miguel Ángel entered the Colegio Sant’Antonio Maria Claret to attend middle and high school. He also spent a year in the minor seminary of Seville. But his parents, although not against their son becoming a priest, asked him to obtain at least a high school diploma, if not a university degree, before making definitive commitments. Thus, the young man enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Seville, but continued to attend Christian commitment groups and participate in spiritual retreats for young people.
Shortly after, finding himself with a copy of Mundo Negro in his hands, he wanted to learn more about the Institute by meeting some of its members and was fascinated by it. He then decided to become one of them.
On 24th September 1973, he entered the Comboni novitiate in Moncada, where on 15th August 1975, he made his first religious profession. In August 1976, he was at the scholasticate in Rome, to continue his theology courses at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. On 27th July 1978, he obtained a baccalaureate in Theology, with a grade of magna cum laude. In the meantime, Miguel Ángel had asked and obtained from his major superiors the assurance that he would be able to work in the Islamic world in the future and intended to prepare himself adequately. In October 1979, he enrolled at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome. In March 1980, he received a letter of assignment to Egypt.
On 2nd May 1980, he took his perpetual vows and on 20th September he was ordained a priest in Seville by Cardinal José María Bueno y Monreal, Archbishop of Seville. On 18thy June 1981, he obtained a Diploma in Arabic Studies. He asked to attend a third year and, on 14th June 1982, he obtained a Licentiate in Arabic Studies and Islamic Studies.
In October 1982 he went to Cairo, assigned to the ‘Cordi Jesu’ Community, in the Abbassiya district, first as local bursar, then also as parish priest of the “Sacratissimo Cuore” (Sakakini) parish, not far from the Coptic Orthodox cathedral and the large and very famous University of al-Azhar, one of the main world centres of religious teaching of Sunni Islam. The Comboni community also ran a centre for the many young Sudanese Catholics present in the Egyptian capital as students, migrants or political refugees. Father Miguel Ángel dedicated himself to assisting the tens of thousands of those young Sudanese. In the meantime, he asked to be sent to Sudan, possibly to the south. He was granted his request, but assigned to the north, to the Province of Khartoum, from 1st July 1986, and appointed to the mission of El Obeid, as director of the diocesan pastoral centre. In July 1991, he was assigned to the community of Khartoum North, the provincial headquarters, engaged in teaching as a professor of Islamology at the Teacher Training Center (until the end of 1993), but also in pastoral work.
In July 1994, in need of medical care, he returned to Spain, assigned to the community of Granada, where, when he could, he gave lessons on Islam and interreligious dialogue, but for the most part he followed courses to obtain a doctorate in Dogmatic Theology at the Faculty of Theology which, in 1996, appointed him scientific collaborator of the ‘Centro de Investigación sobre Relaciones Interreligiosas’ (CIRI).
In June 1997, he returned to Egypt, assigned to the community of Cairo, in the Zamalek area, in whose house the management of the “Dar Comboni” was hosted. In September 1999, Father Miguel Ángel returned to his homeland for his final exams in Dogmatic Theology and in September 2000 he returned to Cairo as a professor of Islamology until May 2001, also becoming superior of the community.
At the end of September 2002, he was assigned to the Curia of Rome as he was requested by the PISAI as a professor. He was immediately appointed director of studies. From June 2006 he was also the Dean. He remained there until 2012.
On 25th June 2007, Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran as president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The Cardinal knew Father Miguel Ángel very well and immediately co-opted him as a consultant to the Council. On 30th June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
At the beginning of 2016, the health of Cardinal Tauran worsened and, on 29th January, Pope Francis, wanting to ensure greater authority in the service of Father Miguel Ángel, appointed him titular bishop of the diocese of Luperciana, and on 19th March he ordained him a bishop in the Saint Peter’s Basilica. After that, there came a series of commitments, of trips to every corner of the world to witness to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Shintoists, Confucians and followers of traditional religions, that it is precisely through personal friendship that a dialogue can be established. On 23rd May 2016, in the Vatican, there was a historic meeting between Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyib, the great Imam of al-Azhar, the highest authority of Sunni Islam. From this, the idea of a common document on human brotherhood emerged. On 28th April 2017, Msgr. Ayuso accompanied the Pontiff on a visit to al-Azhar University. On 25th May 2019, he was appointed president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, succeeding Card. Tauran, who had died on 5th July 2018.
To achieve the objectives set out in the Abu Dhabi Document, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the Higher Committee for Human Fraternity made up of Christians, Muslims and Jews was created. On that committee, Msgr. Ayuso represented the Holy See. On 11th September, on the occasion of the first meeting, Msgr. Ayuso was chosen as president of the Committee. On the occasion of the consistory of 5th October 2019, Pope Francis made him a cardinal.
From 13th to 16th September 2022, in his new role as Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue (from June 5), Card. Ayuso went with Pope Francis to Kazakhstan, in the heart of Central Asia, to participate in the Congress of the Heads of World Religions. From 3rd to 6th November he was in Bahrain, for the ‘Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence’. He returned to Bahrain in 2023, alone, to confer episcopal ordination on Monsignor Aldo Berardi, Apostolic Vicar of Northern Arabia, and for the opening of the Holy Door in Abu Dhabi for the Jubilee of the Martyrs of Arabia. He was also present in Mongolia, in September 2023, for an ecumenical and interreligious meeting. It was then that illness began to dominate.
The year 2024 was an ordeal. He had to be hospitalised several times at the Gemelli hospital in Rome due to cardiovascular issues. Immediately after yet another hospitalisation, on 10th October, the feast of Saint Daniel Comboni, he summoned up his courage and agreed to preside over the Eucharist in the chapel of the General Curia at the Eur. It was to be his final visit to the community of which he had officially been a member for many years. In his homily, he addressed the confreres present with a strong invitation to “assume, not the mentality of a manager, but that of a servant, because we are called to offer our lives.” In mid-November, he was again taken to the Gemelli Hospital where he passed away on the 25th.
On the 26th, Pope Francis sent a telegram of condolences to the Vicar General of the Institute, Father David Costa Domingues, in which he remembers “with affection and admiration this brother who served the Gospel and the Church with exemplary dedication and delicacy of spirit.”
On 27th November, the funeral was held at the Altar of the Chair in the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter during Mass celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals, and by many concel-ebrants. At the end of the Eucharist, Pope Francis presided over the rite of final commendation and farewell.
Numerous messages of condolence were received from all over the world: from the Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayyb, from the Patriarch of Alexandria of the Catholic Copts, Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak, from the President of the Italian Buddhist Union, Filippo Scianna, from the King of Spain, Felipe VI and from Imam Nader Akkad, Advisor for Religious Affairs of the Great Mosque of Rome.
The Church of Seville remembered its illustrious fellow citizen with a funeral mass celebrated on Friday, 29th November in the city’s cathedral, presided over by the Archbishop, Msgr. José Ángel Saiz Meneses.
On 3rd December, the body of Cardinal Ayuso arrived in Seville. And now the first Comboni Cardinal rests in the San José crypt of the cathedral, next to Cardinal Bueno y Monreal, who ordained him a priest in 1980. (Father Franco Moretti, mccj)