Teodoro Gómez

Teodoro Gómez Rivera was born on 7 May 1963 in the village of El Banquito, municipality of El Corpus, in southern Honduras, within the Diocese of Choluteca. He completed philosophy and theology at the Seminario Mayor Nuestra Señora de Suyapa in Tegucigalpa. He later studied in Rome, obtaining a licentiate in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained a priest on 27 January 1996 and incardinated in the Diocese of Choluteca.

As a priest of Choluteca, Gómez held parish, seminary and diocesan posts, including vocations work, seminary formation, parish leadership at San Pablo, direction of educational institutes, Caritas leadership, and service as vicar general and episcopal vicar for pastoral ministry. Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa and titular bishop of Castellum Tatroportus on 14 November 2020; he was consecrated on 15 May 2021 by Bishop Guy Charbonneau at the Basilica of Suyapa. On 26 January 2023 he was named Bishop of Choluteca and took possession on 15 April 2023, becoming the first Honduran to lead the diocese. He was apostolic administrator of Danlí from 10 October 2025 to 25 July 2026 and served as vice-president of the Honduran Episcopal Conference.

As a Catholic bishop, Gómez lived under clerical celibacy. His public life was framed by pastoral and educational work in southern Honduras and by national conference duties. Biographical notices emphasise his roots in El Banquito and lifelong link to the Diocese of Choluteca.

Gómez died on 28 September 2026 in Madrid, Spain, aged 63, while en route to Rome for the Honduran bishops' ad limina Apostolorum visit. Local outlets including El Heraldo and Tu Nota, and later InfoVaticana, reported that he died after arriving in Madrid and before immigration procedures for the onward flight. The Honduran Episcopal Conference published a statement of mourning and asked for prayers through Our Lady of Suyapa. No official cause of death was given in the first public notices.

Gómez is remembered as the first Honduran bishop of Choluteca and as a pastor formed in the same diocese he later led. His path from local parish and seminary roles to the episcopal conference vice-presidency marked a generation of indigenous Honduran leadership in a see previously held by a Canadian missionary bishop. Tributes after Madrid focused on pastoral closeness to southern Honduras and on the sudden loss during a routine ad limina journey.