Richard Alarcón Urrutia

Richard Daniel Alarcón Urrutia was born in Lima, Peru, on 10 April 1952. He attended primary school in Lima and continued his secondary education as an aspirant to religious life at a school of the Order of Friars Minor, the Franciscans, which he entered in 1969.

He studied philosophy in Cusco at the Franciscan student house of La Recoleta and theology at the Faculty of Pontifical and Civil Theology of Lima. He made his solemn profession as a Franciscan on 15 May 1976 and was ordained a priest in Lima on 8 December 1976.

As a Franciscan priest he worked at the parish of San Francisco in Cusco, where he was also bursar of the convent, and then devoted himself to the formation of young friars. He was guardian and master of postulants at the Convent of Santa Bárbara in Juliaca, Puno, from 1979 to 1981, vice-master of the formation house at the Convent of San Francisco in Lima in 1982, and master of postulants at the Convent of San José Obrero in Arequipa.

On 20 April 1993 he left the Franciscan order and was incardinated into the Diocese of Tarma in Peru's central Andes. He served as vicar general of the diocese from 1993 to 2001, parish priest of the Cathedral of Santa Ana in Tarma, parish priest of San Miguel Arcángel in Ulcumayo and of San Cristóbal in Palcamayo, head of the diocesan commission for the laity and, for a time, diocesan administrator.

On 13 June 2001 Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Tarma. He received episcopal consecration on 21 July 2001 in the Cathedral of Santa Ana, with Archbishop Luis Abilio Sebastiani Aguirre as principal consecrator. In 2012 he was elected president of Caritas Peru, and he sat on the Permanent Council of the Episcopal Conference of Peru.

Pope Francis named him Metropolitan Archbishop of Cusco on 27 October 2014, succeeding Archbishop Juan Antonio Ugarte Pérez. He took canonical possession in the Basilica Cathedral of Cusco on 3 January 2015, saying he wanted to serve the people with particular concern for the poor. From 2018 to 2025 he served two terms as president of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference's Commission on the Liturgy. In his later years Archbishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera was appointed as his coadjutor.

As a Catholic priest and former Franciscan friar, Alarcón Urrutia did not marry. He spent almost his entire ministry in the southern and central Andes of Peru, in Cusco, Puno and Junín, and was remembered by the Peruvian bishops as a devoted servant of the Church. Little else about his private life has been made public.

Archbishop Alarcón Urrutia died on Friday, 30 October 2026, in a clinic in Cusco, Peru, aged 74. He had been undergoing treatment for cancer and his health had deteriorated. The Archdiocese of Cusco announced his death, asking the faithful to pray for the eternal rest of "our Pastor".

His coadjutor, Archbishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera, who now takes full charge of the archdiocese, and the whole archdiocesan family expressed their deep sorrow. The Peruvian Episcopal Conference joined in prayer for him as "a selfless servant of his Church", and the Archdiocese of Lima shared a video in which he described learning of the election of Pope Leo XIV.

His death came days before Pope Leo XIV, who previously served as a bishop in Peru, was due to visit Cusco on 15 November 2026. The archdiocese said it would announce details of the wake and funeral Mass.

Alarcón Urrutia led the Archdiocese of Cusco, one of the oldest sees in South America, for more than a decade, and before that guided the Diocese of Tarma for thirteen years. His years forming young Franciscans, his leadership of Caritas Peru and his work on the liturgy for the Peruvian bishops left a mark on the Church across the Andes, where he was known for his pastoral attention to the poor.