Héctor Aguer

Héctor Rubén Aguer was born in Buenos Aires on May 24, 1943, and grew up in the Mataderos neighbourhood of the city. He was a parishioner of Santa María Goretti before entering the seminary.

He studied humanities and philosophy at the Metropolitan Seminary of Buenos Aires (1964 to 1968), Hebrew at the biblical studies department of the Instituto de Cultura Religiosa Superior (1965 to 1967), and theology at the faculty of theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (1968 to 1972). He received a licentiate in theology from the UCA in 1977.

Ordained a priest on November 25, 1972, by Cardinal Juan Carlos Aramburu, he served as vicar at Inmaculada Concepción in Belgrano (1972 to 1976) and San Pedro González Telmo (1976 to 1977), taught moral theology at the UCA (1979 to 1992), and did research at CONICET (1981 to 1984). From 1978 he worked in the Diocese of San Miguel, where he organised and led the diocesan seminary from 1980. In 1989 he was named a Prelate of Honour of His Holiness.

Pope John Paul II appointed him auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires and titular Bishop of Lamdia on February 26, 1992, and he was consecrated on April 4, 1992, by Cardinal Antonio Quarracino. He was named coadjutor of La Plata on June 26, 1998, and became the seventh Archbishop of La Plata on June 12, 2000. Pope Francis accepted his resignation on June 2, 2018, and named Víctor Manuel Fernández to succeed him.

He was Grand Chancellor of the Catholic University of La Plata from 2000 to 2018, president of the Argentine Episcopal Commission for Catholic Education from 2008, Grand Prior for Argentina of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a conventual chaplain of the Order of Malta, a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (2007) and the Pontifical Council for Culture (2009), and a consultor to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. He was an honorary academician of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and a full member of Argentina's National Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

Aguer was a traditionalist theologian who rooted his arguments in Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas. He opposed abortion and the provincial protocol for non-punishable abortions in 2012, criticised sex education policies and the school subject Construcción de Ciudadanía, and after retirement wrote that the Church in Argentina was in decline, saying in 2025 that bishops were living in their own cloud.

His remarks on sexuality, including calling masturbation "animaloide" in 2016 and his statements about homosexuality, drew widespread criticism, and Clarín described him as a polemical figure. He also had a tense relationship with much of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, and the speed with which Pope Francis accepted his resignation in 2018 was widely read as a signal of change for La Plata.

His books include Sobre la educación católica en el momento actual (1998), Textos y contextos (1999) and Espíritu y fuego (2001), alongside many academic articles on Augustine's commentary on the Psalms and on Aquinas. In retirement he wrote weekly columns, many for La Prensa. His life is the subject of El último cruzado. Monseñor Aguer. Intimidades e intrigas de la Iglesia argentina by Pablo Morosi and Andrés Lavaselli (Planeta, 2018).

For almost 20 years Aguer led the Church in La Plata and was the best-known representative of the conservative wing of the Argentine episcopate. Supporters remembered him as a learned, multilingual teacher of the faith, while critics remembered his polemics. The Catholic University of La Plata recalled him as its Grand Chancellor from 2000 to 2018.

Aguer died on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, aged 83, according to a statement from the Chancery of the Archdiocese of La Plata signed in the name of Archbishop Gustavo Carrara and his auxiliary bishops. He had lived in recent years at the Hogar Sacerdotal in Buenos Aires. The cause of death was not made public, and the archdiocese said funeral arrangements would be announced later.