Ignacio Antonio Velasco García was born on 17 January 1929 in the city of Acarigua, Venezuela, to José Antonio Velasco Rangel and Ramona García de Velasco. After his elementary studies in his hometown, he met the Salesians at the Colegio Don Bosco in Valencia. He attended the Salesian aspirantate in La Vega in 1941, and entered the Santa María novitiate in Los Teques in 1944, making his first religious profession on 25 August 1945.
After studying philosophy in the Boleita house in Caracas, he was sent to complete his philosophical and pedagogical studies at the Pontifical Salesian University, at the time still in Turin, obtaining both degrees, and on 30 June 1951 he made his perpetual vows in Valdocco. He then studied theology again, between 1952 and 1956, at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and also obtained a degree in this subject. He was then ordained a priest in Rome on 17 December 1955.
Returning to Venezuela, he rendered his pastoral service as a catechist and teacher at the San José high school in Los Teques (1956-58) and at the school where he had grown up as a boy, the Colegio Don Bosco in Valencia (1958-63). He then became Rector of the houses in Valera and San José centre in Los Teques, before participating in the Special General Chapter of the entire Congregation (1971-72), and receiving his appointment as Provincial of Venezuela.
He completed the six-year period of government and animation of the Province in 1978 and, after a year of theological updating in Rome, returned home again as Rector at Colegio Don Bosco in Valencia, until 1984. He was selected as a Delegate to the22nd General Chapter (1984), and during that assembly he was elected Councillor for the Latin American-Pacific-Caribbean Region and, as such, a member of the General Council of the Congregation.
He carried on this assignment until 23 October 1989, when he was appointed by Pope John Paul II as Apostolic Vicar of Puerto Ayacucho and titular Bishop of Utimmira, receiving episcopal ordination from the hands of John Paul II at St Peter's in Rome on 6 January 1990.
Because of his pastoral skills, on 27 May 1992, he was also appointed Apostolic Administrator ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of San Fernando de Apure; and exactly three years later, on 27 May 1995, he was appointed by John Paul II as Archbishop of Caracas, replacing Cardinal José Alí Lebrún Maratinos.
As archbishop of the Venezuelan capital, he did not miss any opportunity to confirm the flock entrusted to him in the faith. He founded the an Ignacio de Antioquia Formation Centre for adult vocations (1996) and the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary in Caracas (1998). To intensify evangelising activity in the city and give a boost to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Renewal, in 1997-1998 he promoted the "Misión de Caracas". He was also attentive to the media as a vehicle for evangelisation, and for this reason in 1988 he founded and became president of the television network of the Archdiocese of Caracas ("Valores Educativos TV", Vale TV, Canal 5). And in the meantime, faithful to his academic interests, he also took care of higher education, both as Chancellor of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, and by founding, also in 1998, the Santa Rosa de Lima University in Caracas, of which he was also Chancellor.
And he also served the national episcopate, becoming President of the Episcopal Commission for Education (1996-1999), as well as second (1996-1999) and first Vice-President (since 1999) of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference.
Created a cardinal by John Paul II, as mentioned, in 2001, he was honoured with a church of Salesian origin, St Mary Domenica Mazzarello, in the Don Bosco district in Rome.
The difficult situation that Venezuela was going through in those years made the physical suffering suffered by the cardinal even more serious. On several occasions he was subjected to harsh verbal attacks from President Hugo Chávez. And a grenade was thrown at his residence as part of the social tensions of the time, on 12 November 2002.
After battling cancer for a long time, Cardinal Ignacio Antonio Velasco García died on Sunday, 6 July 2003. Commemorating the life of this "zealous and devoted pastor", after his death the then Pope John Paul II wrote a telegram in which he observed: "His generous and intense ministerial work, first as a Salesian religious, then as a youth educator, as a priest and finally as apostolic vicar of Puerto Ayacucho, and until the moment in which he was asked to take on this important task (in the archdiocese of Caracas, Ed.), testifies to his great dedication to the cause of the Gospel as well as his personal qualities."
