Rafael Guízar y Valencia

Rafael Guízar y Valencia (16 April 1878 – 6 June 1938)[1] was a Mexican Catholic bishop who was active during the Mexican Revolution. Named Bishop of Xalapa in 1919, he was driven out of his diocese and forced to live the remainder of his life in hiding in Mexico City.

This name uses Spanish naming customs. The paternal family name is Guízar and the maternal family name is Valencia.
Saint

Rafael Guízar y Valencia
Portrait.
Bishop
Born16 April 1878
Cotija, Michoacán, Mexico
Died6 June 1938(1938-06-06) (aged 60)
Mexico City, Mexico
Venerated inRoman Catholic Church
Beatified29 January 1995, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
Canonized15 October 2006, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Major shrineXalapa Cathedral, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
Feast24 October
AttributesBishop's attire
PatronageDiocese of Xalapa

Guizar's body was exhumed in 1950, twelve years after his death, and witnesses have said it had not decayed.[2]

Pope Benedict XVI canonized Guízar on 15 October 2006.

Uncle of Marcial Maciel

Guízar was the uncle of Marcial Maciel, who became a priest and founded the Legion of Christ. According to investigative journalist Jason Berry and former Hartford Courant religion writer Gerald Renner:

The day before Bishop Guizar died, he had been heard shouting angrily at his eighteen-year-old nephew, Marcial Maciel. He was giving Maciel a dressing-down after two women had come to the bishop's house to complain about Maciel, who was their neighbor. Father Orozco, who was among the original group of boys to found the Legion of Christ in 1941, said he heard the women had complained about the "noise" Maciel was making with children he had brought into his home to teach religion. He said that the seminary officials blamed Maciel for his uncle's heart attack and subsequent death.[3]

The incident would take on new significance decades after Guízar's death, when Pope Benedict XVI ordered Maciel to retire to a life of prayer and penance after a papal commission completed its investigation into his sexual misconduct with Legion seminarians who were minors at the time. Suspended from priestly faculties by Pope Benedict, Maciel did not attend his uncle's canonization.[4] Maciel was also discovered, in 2009, to have fathered possibly as many as six children while under the vow of chastity.[5]

Veneration

Guízar was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 29 January 1995.[6] He was canonized on 15 October 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI.[7]

See also

References
  1. "Newest K of C Saint a Model of Charity". www.kofc.org. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  2. "El Cuerpo del Ilmo. Sr. Obispo Guizár y Valencia se encuentra como si tuviera 24 Hrs. de haber fallecido". Cause for the Canonization (in Spanish).
  3. Berry & Renner, Vows of Silence, Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, New York: 2004, p. 155
  4. "The Reverend Marcial Maciel". The Telegraph: Obituaries. 2 February 2008.
  5. Thompson, Damian (12 August 2009). "Legionaries of Christ founder Fr Maciel may have had six children, say reports". The Telegraph.
  6. Acta Apostolicae Sedis (PDF). LXXXVII. 1995. pp. 834ff. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  7. "Pope Benedict XVI Names 4 to Sainthood". New York Times. 16 October 2006. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
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