RABAT (MOROCCO)
Morocco World News [Rabat, Morocco]
September 14, 2026
By Adil Faouzi
Born in Vélez-Rubio, Almería, Cristóbal López Romero became archbishop of Rabat in 2017 and was made a cardinal in 2019, later figuring among the possible successors to Pope Francis.
Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero has told the Catholics of Rabat that he is waiting for a Vatican hearing on sexual assault accusations against him, in a letter that also announced his eventual successor.
Writing “from Spain, but close in heart,” the archbishop of Rabat addressed his diocese on Saturday, September 12, to confirm the appointment of Father Mario León Dorado as coadjutor archbishop. The new title, he explained, means Dorado “will remain in the service of the diocese permanently,” after a short spell as apostolic administrator that began in early August.
López Romero framed the appointment as the answer to a request he had made well before the current crisis. He received it “with great joy and with immense gratitude to Pope Leo,” he wrote, tracing the idea back to late 2024, when he first raised a coadjutor with Pope Francis. After Francis died, he repeated the request to Pope Leo in October 2025.
The cardinal then set out what the move means for the succession. Dorado “will be my successor as pastor of this diocese when the Pope accepts my resignation, which I must present at the latest at the time of my 75th birthday, in May 2027,” he wrote, referring to the standard canonical requirement for bishops to submit their resignation upon reaching 75.
A coadjutor carries an automatic right of succession and takes over the moment the see falls vacant through retirement or death. Dorado would become the sixth titular archbishop of Rabat, after Lefebvre, Chabert, Michon, and Landel.
Only near its close did the letter turn to the investigation. “For my part, I remain waiting to be heard by the Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples, on which our diocese depends, in order to explain myself in the investigation concerning me, which is the reason I had stepped back from diocesan life,” the cardinal wrote. He asked diocesans to welcome Dorado “with joy and an open heart.”
The accusations became public in early July, when Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that at least five adult women had accused López Romero of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior.
The alleged acts span 2009 to 2024, in Morocco and in earlier postings; the cardinal served part of his ministry in Paraguay and Bolivia. They include non-consensual touching and abuse of spiritual authority. One woman wrote to the Rabat nunciature describing “particularly intense and prolonged” embraces and an attempt to kiss her.
López Romero, archbishop of Rabat since 2017 and made a cardinal in 2019, has denied wrongdoing. He told reporters he had committed “neither aggression nor violence nor sexual harassment,” and announced in July that he was stepping aside from all public and pastoral duties so as not to obstruct the Vatican’s preliminary inquiry.
He had figured among the cardinals seen as possible successors to Francis in the 2025 conclave that elected Leo XIV.
The inquiry, run by the Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples, advanced over the summer. Between August 5 and 7, an apostolic visit led by Bishop Hyacinthe Dione and Father Augustin Chako-Yodi went to the diocese to pursue the accusations and review its financial, pastoral, and liturgical management.
The visitors heard members of the pastoral and presbyteral councils, those who had brought accusations, and others. Two of the women and a whistleblower gave their accounts to AFP.
The cardinal had been summoned to Rome this September to give his account, but his testimony was postponed for several reasons, among them the death of the father of Cardinal Tagle, who heads the dicastery leading the investigation and had to travel to the Philippines.
No complaint has been filed before Moroccan courts, the prosecutor’s office and police told AFP.
Dorado, a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, has served in Western Sahara for more than two decades. Born in Madrid on March 16, 1974, he studied information technology before earning a bachelor’s degree in theology from the San Dámaso Faculty of Theology in Madrid.
He took his first religious vows on September 15, 1996, and was ordained a priest on June 2, 2001. After parish work in Jaén, Spain, from 2000 to 2004, he was sent to the apostolic prefecture of Western Sahara, serving as apostolic administrator from 2009 and as apostolic prefect from 2013. He became apostolic administrator of the Rabat archdiocese in August 2026.
In his own message, he welcomed the appointment “with joy, but also with ‘fear and trembling.’” The Vatican’s announcement reviewed his career without mentioning López Romero.