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Sacramento, Calif., Jul 15, 2016 / 12:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On July 8 Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Servant of God Alphonse Gallegos, who was auxiliary bishop of Sacramento from 1981 to 1991.

The late bishop is now called Venerable, and only one miracle worked through his intercession is needed before he can be beatified.

“This is wonderful news for all those who knew him,” Fr. Eliseo Gonzalez, vice-postulator of Venerable Gallegos' cause of canonization, told CNA.

Fr. Gonzalez is a member of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, in which Bishop Gallegos was ordained a priest in 1958. Since the cause for canonization opened in December 2005, Fr. Gonzalez has been working to tell the bishop’s story.

He explained that many people who knew Bishop Gallegos considered him a “living saint.”

The bishop was born Feb. 20, 1931 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was the eighth of 11 children.  His mother and father, Caciana and Joseph Gallegos, were very pious according to a biography from Fr. Gonzalez. The family prayed daily rosaries together and often had lessons on the catechism.

Bishop Gallegos was born with a “severe myopic condition” impacting his eyesight. Though he had many surgeries, the bishop’s poor vision “remained chronic.”

In an effort to seek “better educational opportunities for their children as well as medical treatment for him,” Venerable Gallegos’ parents moved the family to Los Angeles in the early 1930s.

It was there that Bishop Gallegos found his religious vocation. The family put down roots in an area known as “Watts”, and they began attending San Miguel parish, which was run by the Order of Augustinian Recollects. Bishop Gallegos began “nurturing a deep desire to follow the religious life.”

Venerable Gallegos entered the Order of Augustinian Recollects as a novice in 1950. A year later, he professed his first vows, and his solemn vows three years later.

“His visual handicap, however, limited his ability to read and to master all the study requirements for the advancement to the priesthood,” his biography explained.

In 1954, Venerable Gallegos was moved to the order’s major seminary, Tagaste Monastery, in Suffern, New York. But his vision worsened, making his studies more difficult. He could not read his breviary so he would instead pray the rosary.

“His situation was such that doubts were raised concerning his preparation for the priesthood,” but he was ordained a priest May 24, 1958, given his holiness, humility, and community spirit.

Venerable Gallegos’ ministry as a priest began at Tagaste Monastery. He spent eight years working with the neighboring hospitals and religious communities. After, he was appointed novice master for the Augustinian Recollects' Province of St. Augustine in Kansas City, Kansas.  In 1972, he returned home to be pastor at his home parish in Watts.

The neighborhood was predominantly African-American and poor. Riots in the 1960s had left the area divided and filled with gangs, crime, and poverty. The priest made it his priority to focus on the local children, greeting them daily at the parish’s school.  

On the weekends, Venerable Gallegos would spend time with the lowriders of the community, blessing their cars and encouraging the Hispanic youth to pursue a college education. He also took care of the elderly and opened his home to anyone in need. He later served at Cristo Rey parish.

Word spread of his service, and in 1979 Venerable Gallegos was appointed director of the newly-created Hispanic affairs office of the California Catholic Conference. In this role he worked with bishops in both New Mexico and California on such issues as immigration and evangelization. His work there led to his appointment as auxiliary bishop of Sacramento in 1981.

“He was Hispanic, yet he ministered to a very diverse group of people,” Olympia Nunez, Venerable Gallegos' long-time secretary, told CNA.

“We had a Korean community, Chinese, African-American, Hispanic, and he was the person in charge of all these groups.”

Nunez said the bishop was incredibly kind and outgoing, and never complained about his disability.

“Once a year for his birthday, everyone got together and celebrated with different ethnic foods and customs,” Nunez reflected. “He brought all these people together.”

The bishop’s episcopal motto was “love one another.” He advocated for the culture of life, and personally paid Catholic school tuition for the poor.  

Fr. Gonzalez called Bishop Gallegos an inspiration and example of hope and fortitude for all.

“If he was able to accomplish such great things, why can’t we? With God’s help we can also accomplish great things.”

On Oct. 6, 1991, Bishop Gallegos and his driver were returning home from Gridley, about 60 miles north of Sacramento. They had car troubles, so the two got out and started pushing the car to the side of the road. Another vehicle, driving in the same direction, struck the bishop.

More than 2,000 people were present at his funeral, and lowriders formed one of the longest funeral processions ever documented.

In addition to his pastoral concern for the poor, Venerable Gallegos was known for his commitment to the culture of life. He had been at a gathering in Gridley to pray the rosary for an end to abortion the day he died.

With the announcement of the bishop's cause advancing, Nunez said: “He doesn’t belong to just Sacramento or California, he now belongs to the United States in general, and to the world, as an example of a good, humble, generous human being.”

In order for him to be canonized, two miracles through the intercession of Venerable Alphonse Gallegos must be verified.

The faithful are encouraged to visit Venerable Alphonse Gallegos’ body at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in downtown Sacramento, his life-size statue in Bishop Gallegos Square, and a mini-museum displaying the bishop’s personal items in Oxnard, some 65 miles west of Los Angeles.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Carlo Allegri, Reuters

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Bryan Massingale, a priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese and well-known theologian, knows what it's like to be watched by police.

He said that as a black man there have been times he has been followed by police officers on the campus of Marquette University, where he taught for 12 years, as he walked on campus when he wasn't wearing his priestly garb.

It's a sign, Father Massingale told Catholic News Service, of the widespread racism that is entrenched in American culture.

Racism takes many forms: unequal access to housing, economic segregation, differences in the quality of schools between poor and well-to-do communities, and how police approach someone at a traffic stop or a street-side altercation.

"That's why we need to understand that racism is more than negative speaking," said the priest, who will join the theology faculty at Fordham University Aug. 1. "It's really a cult of white supremacy. (Saying) that makes us feel uncomfortable because most people feel it's related to the Ku Klux Klan. It's not that. It's a subtle culture of white belonging, that somehow public spaces belong to 'us' in a way (that) for others they are not."

It's time, Father Massingale said, for the U.S. Catholic Church, led by the bishops, to hold up racial injustice as an "intrinsic evil," just as it has prioritized abortion and same-sex marriage.

"This indeed is a life issue," he said.

Father Massingale is not alone in his call nor in using strong language when discussing what has been described as systemic racism. Other Catholic theologians and social justice leaders urged the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to openly and honestly confront the "original sin" of racism and acknowledge that a sense of white privilege is widespread and continues to harm communities of color.

While church teaching about racism has been clear, they told CNS, church practice has not always been forthright.

Some initiated a call for the bishops to develop a new pastoral letter on racism to address 21st-century concerns. The last, "Brother and Sisters to Us," was issued in 1979. In it the bishops called racism a sin. A report commissioned by the USCCB for the 25th anniversary of the document in 2004 found that while some progress in addressing racism had been made within the church, results had fallen short of expectations.

In ongoing efforts to address race relations, the USCCB established the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church in 2008 to coordinate the bishops' outreach to African-Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, Native Americans and migrants, refugees and travelers.

Donna Grimes, assistant director, African American affairs, in the secretariat has led "intercultural competency" training sessions around the country for three years. The programs, lasting up to three days, focus on helping parishes to become welcoming places to newcomers in an increasingly diverse church.

Priests and seminarians in particular, Grimes said, are interested in learning how to guide parishes to be more welcoming communities. Still, there are concerns, she said.

"Many seminarians seem to be out of touch with some of the communities I'm familiar with," said Grimes, an African-American. "I get a sense that they expect to be ordained and to go to perhaps a suburban parish like the one they grew up in. But with the shortage of priests and the need for priests to be flexible, it's very important that they pick up the skill, knowledge and attitudes, I would say, to be interculturally competent."

Discussions among parish participants during the sessions -- and afterward -- have revealed a desire for the church to more aggressively confront racism, Grimes said.

"People would really like to hear more from the bishops. This is what I keep hearing. They say, 'Do they (the bishops) care? Is it really a church home for me?'" Grimes said.

"We've got a lot of challenges out in the community that people are frustrated about, black and white and other races as well," she explained. "They are very frustrated about things happening in the community, from one city after another -- tension, video recording, violence. It's very upsetting and distressing.

"The church is not immune to that. People, I find, they want this resolved ... and they want to raise the issue, their concerns, in the church. They want them to be discussed. They want them to be heard," Grimes said.

Theologians such as M. Shawn Copeland at Boston College, Kathleen Grimes (no relation to Donna Grimes) at Villanova University, Karen Teel at the University of San Diego and Jon Nilson of Loyola University admitted that whites become alarmed when terms such as white supremacy and white privilege are used to explain why racism persists. Copeland is black; the other three theologians are white.

Using such terms is a way of raising awareness of the struggles within herself and within her students to better understand people of different backgrounds, Teel told CNS.

"I find that many white people don't know what's going on (economically and socially). Given the nature of white supremacy, it's our nature not to understand it," Teel explained.

"Part of what I'm trying to do is break down how whiteness works and how white people think and explain and talk about the history (within the context of church teaching)," she added.

The answer to racism rests in understanding that human dignity is foremost in church teaching, Copeland said.

"The very simple answer is love of God and love of neighbor. And it's also the most complex answer because it requires the most profound conversion of mind and heart," she said.

Beyond the bishops, parishioners must take charge in the fight against racism, Copeland added.

"We are all responsible. It's not about guilt. It's about responsibility. Whether you came to the United States last week or came 300 years ago, we're all responsible for the condition of our country."

Copeland suggested that parishes assemble groups of people to "sit together ... and be quiet enough to surface what is happening in our country. That's not asking people to spend money. It's asking people to set aside some time. It's asking people to think deeply and prayerfully about what's happening to us."

Prayer, reflection and discussion are major parts of a year-old effort by Pax Christi USA to build interracial understanding and promote peace. Sister Patricia Chappell, executive director, said the Communities of Color workshops, offered six times thus far, are meant to bring people together to talk and reflect on the gifts they bring to the church as well as the wider community.

"The reality of the Catholic Church and, of course, our country is that Sunday morning services still continue to be the most segregated times in America," said Sister Patricia, who is black and a member of the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur.

Pax Christi USA leaders decided to develop the workshops because they saw that true peace would never be realized until people better understood each other. In many cases, the discussions are the first that participants have ever had about race relations.

"It's providing an opportunity for people to build community and to be in right relationships with each other," Sister Patricia said, "and to continue this discussion of how do we build this community valuing the cultural and ethnic gifts that each person brings."

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Editor's Note: Information about USCCB's cultural diversity secretariat intercultural program is available online at http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/cultural-diversity/index.cfm.

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Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

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