BY DONNA GEHRKE-WHITE

  Miami Auxiliary Bishop Agustín Román, a beloved figure in the exile community and the first Cuban to become a U.S. Catholic leader, said Tuesday that he was retiring once Pope John Paul II accepts his mandatory retirement notice.

  Román turns 75 on Monday, the age when bishops must submit their retirement notices to Rome.

  Miami Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Wenski predicts the Holy See will want Román to stay on for at least a few months longer. Vatican officials couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

  He still works despite several heart attacks and a 1992 quadruple bypass surgery, Wenski said. ``He's amazing. He's old in age but still very young in spirit.''

  Román won national attention as a mediator when Mariel detainees in federal prisons in Atlanta and Oakdale, La., rioted in 1987 over their detention pending deportation. His efforts ended the standoff, although he refused to take credit, calling himself a ``servant, not a hero.''

  Román has been a Miami auxiliary bishop for 24 years. In 1979, he became the first Cuban-born bishop in the United States. He was first ordained as a priest in Cuba in 1959; two years later, Fidel Castro's government expelled him from the island. He spent four years in Chile before arriving in Miami in 1966.

  Román poured himself into Miami's Cuban exile community. He helped establish the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Coconut Grove to the patroness of Cuba.

  Despite his heart problems, Román has kept a rigorous schedule, meeting with Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas when he came to Miami in January.

  In March, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ronald Friedman ordered Román to answer questions about what he knows in the first clergy sexual-abuse lawsuit headed for trial in South Florida.

  ''I am planning on taking his deposition in a couple of weeks,'' said Jeffrey Herman, attorney for ex-altar boy Jose A. Currais Jr., who alleges in his lawsuit against the archdiocese that he was sexually abused by the Rev. Ricardo Castellanos and the Rev. Alvaro Guichard.

  Both priests have denied the charges, but are on leave pending the case's outcome and the church's investigation.

  Our Lady of Charity shrine, 3609 S. Miami Ave., will honor Román at 5 p.m. Sunday with a service and rosary on the eve of his birthday.