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Published: July 22, 2009
St. Alphonse of Sacramento?
Process to canonize beloved former auxiliary bishop moves forward
An effort to beatify and canonize former Sacramento Auxiliary Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, described in one biography as a “champion of the unborn and the unwanted,” continues to move forward.
 The diocese is in the process of preparing a more than 1000-page report summarizing the testimony of over 100 witnesses attesting to Bishop Gallegos’ virtuous life and declarations from those who say the bishop has interceded on their behalf since his death almost 18 years ago. The report is scheduled to be sent to the Vatican at year’s end.
Bishop Gallegos, one of 11 children of Joseph and Caciana Gallegos and a member of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, was ordained auxiliary bishop of Sacramento on November 4, 1981. He was killed in a car crash in October 1991 at the age of 60.
According to the Augustinian Recollects, the cause for his beatification and canonization was introduced to the Vatican in Rome in November 2006. On July 4, 2008, the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued a decree of validity of the diocesan process for the cause of Bishop Gallegos’ beatification. The lengthy document now under preparation by the Sacramento diocese is the next step in the process and is known as a Positio Super Virtutibus, a formal presentation attesting to the saintly virtues of Bishop Gallegos.
"He deserves it," Angela Zapata of Elk Grove told the Sacramento Bee. Zapata says Bishop Gallegos interceded on behalf of her premature child who suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and who doctors said had just days to live. "I know that praying to him and asking him to help made a huge difference." She told the Bee that an Augustinian priest came to the dying child’s bedside, put a prayer card with Bishop Gallegos’ image inside the baby’s incubator, baptized the baby and wrapped the child’s body with the bishop’s stole. The baby, named Angelique, “is now a healthy, happy 2-year-old,” Zapata told the newspaper. “I know he heard our prayers."
Sara Sevilla, 15, of Oxnard, told the Bee that she was nearly blind and said Bishop Gallegos’ intercession restored her vision a year ago. “My family and I prayed, asking for his help," Sevilla told the Bee. "I got this warm feeling all over me and then I got my eyesight."
Backers of Bishop Gallegos’ cause for sainthood have asked Rome for permission to move the bishop’s body from St. Mary’s Cemetery to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, a downtown Sacramento parish where he once served. They say moving the bishop’s body would make him more accessible to those who want to visit his grave to pay homage and pray.
Nonetheless, reported the newspaper, even at his current gravesite at St. Mary’s Cemetery in south Sacramento, “many have visited his mausoleum to give thanks, present him with flowers and ask for his help.”
Fr. James Murphy, vicar general of the Sacramento diocese, told the Bee that diocesan officials support the cause for Bishop Gallegos' canonization, and were responsible for beginning the process in December 2005. "We want to do what we can," Fr. Murphy told the Bee. "But keep in mind that the entire process could take decades or longer."
Upon being named auxiliary bishop of Sacramento, Bishop Gallegos began “a labor of intense dedication to the people of Sacramento, especially among the migrants, the various minority groups, the poor, and the youth,” says a biography of Bishop Gallegos on the web site of the Augustinian Recollects. “His advocacy on behalf of the unborn was eloquently present in the street demonstrations and in the chambers of the state government.”
Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:51 AM By Dan
I have been re-reading Msgr George Kelly's Battle for the American Church (Revisited), and if anything is clear from this reading, it is that the American Church has had too few holy and effective bishops in the turbulent years after Vatican II. It sounds like Bishop Gallegos was "the man."
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Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 5:08 AM By RIchard Flores
This is exactly what we need...Recognition of a holy man that protected life and the poor. I hope that this moves forward quickly as it is desperately needed!
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Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:42 AM By JLS
MarkF, what you're saying out of your reading of Pius IX and Vatican Counsel II calls also for "why". I have been looking at this "why" of it as a pruning or a playing out of the net, because fishers of men (St Peter and the Apostles) do what fishermen do with fish, they reel them in and play out the line in the effort to land them into the boat. Jesus cursed a tree for not producing as it should have ... maybe that is like St Peter looking into the harvest in the net before hauling it on board, and then throwing all the old boots, tree limbs and other flotsam and jetsam back into the sea. It is like an orchard owner cutting off the dead branches and tossing them in the fire. Hey if the sheep want to make like goats and refuse to stay with the flock, then how is the shepherd going to keep them from becoming feasts for the wolves and food for the vultures? The purpose of the flock is to please the shepherd; although the good shepherd will leave his 99 and go and save his lost lamb, note it is a lost lamb and not a trans-lamb that became a wild goat. Shepherds use dogs to protect and herd their flocks. Have any of you ever watched sheepdogs at work? Don't get too close, as some of these breeds are big, aggressive, business only and fully bonded to the sheep at the expense of anyone or any predator that might be perceived as dangerous. I almost ran into a couple of these which made my Labradors look like chihuahuas. Charging at us through a stand of trees I at first thought they were a couple of playful ponies, and then realized they were herd dogs coming to deal with the possible threat ... we were over a half mile from the flock. Yes, their tails were wagging, and that is how the Lord runs his sheepfolds ... the guards can allow some visitors inside the lines, but watch them carefully and are capable of swift rebuke.
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Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 10:53 AM By Life Lady
California desperately needs a patron saint, especially one who has the reputation of protection of the unborn, and as such, family. If we all could keep that in mind, and pray to this holy saint perhaps it would help California in a bigger way.
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Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 8:52 PM By JLS
Oops, I posted the above on the wrong thread. Oh well, happy to find someone from the Sacramento area is up for sainthood. He is desparately needed in that region.
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Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 11:12 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Bishop Gallegos was the cousin of my late friend, Ralph Rivas, he presided at his funeral. That is how I came to know him and respect him. He suffered greatly under the liberal Ordinary. The last time I saw him was at a Human Life International Confernce at which he asked me to please pray for him. Because of his orthodoxy, he suffered much.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founder & Chairman
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
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Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009 5:05 AM By Angelo
I always wondered, can anything good come out of California?
Can California Catholic Daily give an address, for obtaining prayer cards, and information on Alphonse of Sacramento.
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Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:16 AM By JLS
Yes, Angelo, good things come from California. Corn, for example, is produced in this state: It feeds herds, and the squeezins feed the politicians.
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Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:41 PM By Angelo
JLS, could you be more specific. We have had corn here for more than a thousand years. Who exactly are the herds?
And who exactly are the squeezins who feed the politicians.
Those are the ones you refer to. Could you please just say what you mean?
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Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:35 PM By Laurette Elsberry
In response to the Sacramento Bee article on BIshop Gallegos I submitted a letter to the editor. Because the letter has the "A" word in it, it is not going to be published. Here it is: The last time I saw Bishop Alphonse Gallegos in person was on August 24, 1991, just weeks before his untimely death. He was on his knees, praying the Rosary, in front of a local abortion center. He was being jeered at and tormented by a cadre of pro-abortion extremists. He prayed for them and the babies that were being killed there.......If exemplfying "heroic virtue" is required for sainthood, the actions of Bishop Gallegos that day certainly seem to fit into this category.
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Posted Friday, July 24, 2009 7:42 AM By JLS
Angelo, I was just using corn to make an analogy. Corn is good. On the other hand, corn "squeezin's" is slang for the 180 proof beverage called corn whiskey, almost pure alcohol, and can lead rulers to rule like drunk drivers drive. By "herds" in this analogy I mean all of us in the sense that we are being falsely shepherded by many of our rulers. Picture a flock of sheep or a herd or goats with a drunken shepherd -- this image could compare to what is happening to California. It is this sort of condition of man which the saints, such as perhaps Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, has to work in. I will say that if such a powerful soul was then residing in that area of California then maybe it was part of his spiritual radiance that helped turn the tide for me in my own then disparate life.
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Posted Saturday, July 25, 2009 10:16 PM By Anne T.
Prayer cards would be lovely, Angelo. We need all the prayers we can get.
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Posted Saturday, August 08, 2009 7:08 AM By Alberto
What a difference between this true soldier of Christ and Obama.
Wake up democrats. You don't know (or probably you do) where you're heading.
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Posted Saturday, August 08, 2009 10:23 PM By Mark
Please ask the holy bishop Alphonse of Sacramento to intercede for my father PAUL who is in need of a miracle.
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Posted Monday, August 10, 2009 1:29 AM By Kevin Hale
Great news to know that another American is being considered for the churches highest honor. May God bring America a harvest of saints. The US needs our own examples of holiness. We have many men and women deserving of these honors. It is up to us American Catholics to promote them. Kevin
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