Rafael Guízar Valencia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Saint Rafael Guízar Valencia
Rafael Guízar Valencia
Born	April 26, 1878, Cotija, Michoacán
Died	June 6, 1938, Mexico City
Venerated in	Roman Catholicism
Beatified	January 29, 1995 by John Paul II
Canonized	October 15, 2006, Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Feast	June 6
Saints Portal

Saint Rafael Guízar Valencia (April 26, 1878 – June 6, 1938) was a Catholic bishop who cared for the wounded and dying in Mexico's 1910-17 Revolution. Named bishop of Veracruz, he was driven out of his home diocese and forced to live the remainder of his life in hiding in Mexico City. He was also a Knight of Columbus.

His body was exhumed in 1950, twelve years after his death, and witnesses have said it had not decayed, except for the left eye, which he was said to have offered up for a sinner during his lifetime.

Pope Benedict XVI canonized Bishop Guízar Valencia as a saint on October 15, 2006.

Six other Knights, all of whom were martyred in Mexico during the persecutions of the 1920s and 1930s, were declared saints of the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

“We welcome the canonization of our brother Knight, Bishop Guízar Valencia, and know that his life of courage and legacy of evangelization will be an inspiration to each of our 1.7 million members around the world,” said Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson, who attended Bishop Guízar Valencia’s canonization in Rome.

Rafael Guízar Valencia was born in Cotija de la Paz, Michoacán, on April 16, 1878. He was ordained a priest in 1901. With the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, persecution of the Catholic Church became severe, and Guízar became a special target because of his outspoken defense of the Church.

He went underground – disguised as a junk dealer – to continue his work as a priest. In 1915, when the government ordered that he be shot on sight, he escaped to the United States, and then went on to serve the Church in Guatemala and Cuba.

While in Cuba, he was consecrated as bishop of Veracruz. The end of the Revolution enabled him to return to Mexico in January 1920, and he joined Knights of Columbus Council 2311 in Xalapa, Veracruz, on August 16, 1923.

As bishop, he founded a clandestine seminary to train future priests, noting that “A bishop can do without a mitre, a crosier, and even a cathedral, but never without a seminary, because the future of his diocese depends on the seminary.”

Bishop Guízar Valencia was forced to flee Mexico once again in 1927 during the persecution of the Church under President Plutarco Elías Calles. He returned in 1929, the year the Church reached an accord with the government, in part because of successful lobbying by the Knights of Columbus to get the U.S. government to take an active role in solving the crisis.

After his return to Mexico, Bishop Guízar Valencia continued his ministry, and became known as “the bishop of the poor.” He died of natural causes on June 6, 1938, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on January 29, 1995.