March 6, 2010
Bishop Gallegos’ body will be moved to new tomb in bid for sainthood
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, at left, encouraged Hispanic ministry programs throughout the diocese. In this undated photo, the bishop participates in a Hispanic youth ministry retreat at the former Bishop Manogue High School, now the site of the Diocesan Pastoral Center in Sacramento.
Herald file photo
The remains of the bishop’s body will be moved to the church on March 27. A vigil for the bishop will begin at 10 a.m. that day and at noon Bishop Jaime Soto will preside at a special Mass for the transfer of the body.
Supporters of the cause for sainthood hope that by moving the bishop’s remains to the parish where he once served as pastor will enable parish members to ask his intercession on their behalf.
The bishop’s remains are being re-interred at the request of the Augustinian Recollects, Bishop Gallegos’ religious order. The order is promoting the bishop’s cause for beatification, the formal ecclesiastical process to have the bishop declared a saint.
Father Eliseo Gonzalez, a member of the order and co-postulator for the cause of canonization, told The Herald he hopes to document a miracle through Bishop Gallegos’ intercession so that the bishop can be beatified. A second documented miracle could have the bishop declared a saint.
“Many favors are already attributed to the intercession of Bishop Gallegos,” said Father Gonzalez, who has been interviewing people who’ve prayed for the bishop’s intercession and believe they have received it. As yet he has no documented miracles, but explained he recognizes not only truthfulness but also joy in the stories told by those he has interviewed.
“They have a sense of intimacy, of family, when they speak of Bishop Gallegos,” he said. “They respond to him the way people responded to him when he was alive.”
The bishop’s tomb will be located in a niche on the south wall in Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The niche’s architect, Lourdes Gonzalez, a member of Immaculate Conception Parish in Sacramento, has been researching Bishop Gallegos’ life to create a design that reflects the late bishop’s values and personality.
The tomb itself will be enclosed by a low railing, she said. On the left will be a statue of St. Augustine, in honor of Bishop Gallegos’ religious order, and on the right will be a statue of St. Joseph, the patron saint of the Gallegos family.
There will be kneelers and votive candles before the statues, to make places to pray, Gonzalez said, and on the far right will be a woven prayer mahogany wall. The wall is woven so that people can write their prayer requests on slips of paper, fold the slips and tuck them into the wall, she said.
The niche will include a dark blue mosaic in honor of the bishop’s devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, well as the bishop’s coat of arms and his episcopal motto, “Love One Another.”
Bishop Gallegos was pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish for seven years after his episcopal ordination, and he remained in residence at the parish throughout his years as auxiliary bishop and vicar general of the diocese.
Before serving as auxiliary bishop of Sacramento and pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, from 1979 to 1981, Bishop Gallegos also served as the founding director of the division of Hispanic affairs at the California Catholic Conference in Sacramento.
In that position, he traveled to dioceses across the state, setting in motion pastoral teams and a Spanish language radio program to reach California’s farm workers. He was also pastor of San Miguel Parish in the Los Angeles are of Watts, and of Cristo Rey Parish in Glendale.
Bishop Gallegos was known for his outreach to “low riders,” people who drive cars with modified suspension systems that allow the cars’ bodies to ride low to the ground. About 300 low rider cars participated in a procession before the bishop’s funeral Mass at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento.
Bishop Gallegos died Oct. 6, 1991, when he was struck by a car as he offered aid to a motorist stranded by the side of the road.
The Diocese of Sacramento began the beatification process for the bishop in December 2005 at the request of his religious order. In July 2008, church leaders at the Vatican granted the decree of validity to Bishop Gallegos’ cause, declaring him “a servant of God” and a candidate for beatification.
Father Tim Nondorf, secretary to Bishop Soto, noted that the process of considering sainthood itself is inspiring, explaining that saints are role models and examples for the Catholic faithful.
“Both the saints that lived long ago and modern-day saints help to show us that we can be successful, that we can, as St. Paul says, ‘Achieve the victory,’” he said. “They show us that even in this modern world, with all of its difficulties and distractions, we can live a good life and go home to our Father.”
Canonization process
The church’s process leading to canonization involves three major steps.
First is the declaration of a person’s heroic virtues, after which the church gives him/her the title of Venerable.
Second is beatification, after which he or she is called Blessed.
The third step is canonization, or declaration of sainthood.
At various steps in the canonization process, evidence of alleged miracles is presented to church authorities. In general, two miracles need to be accepted by the church as having occurred through the intercession of the prospective saint.
