U.S. Catholic bishops overwhelmingly supported this week a request to advance the beatification and canonization of the Rev. Richard Thomas, a Jesuit priest who participated in a multiplication of food at a Ciudad Juárez garbage dump Dec. 25, 1972.
The group voted 206-4 with one abstention to advance the request at a later date to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints for further investigation. The action was taken Tuesday during the group’s business meeting in Baltimore.
Thomas, a priest of the Society of Jesus, died in 2006 in Vado, New Mexico. He had served in the dioceses of El Paso and Las Cruces since 1964. Known as a gifted preacher and teacher, he focused his ministry on service to the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised. He is buried in Concordia Cemetery in El Paso.
The Jesuit spent much of his later years at The Lord’s Ranch, a farm and dairy he purchased in Vado, about 30 miles from El Paso in the Diocese of Las Cruces.
Among those who spoke in favor of this motion was Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso. He said that while he did not know Thomas, who died before his installation as bishop in 2013, he had heard of his work for many years. He called Thomas a true believer who put his faith in practice.
Seitz said there are still many people in the El Paso/Las Cruces area whose lives were changed for having known him.
“His trust in God was so incredible,” Seitz said to his fellow bishops before the vote.
The motion was promoted by Bishop Peter Baldacchino of the Diocese of Las Cruces. He shared the story of the Christmas miracle with his brother bishops.
Thomas and some Bible study participants had just read a Bible passage from the Gospel of St. Luke where people should care for the poor. The group packed food for approximately 150 people and headed to the dump. They eventually fed full meals to more than 300 who lived there and had enough left to donate to two orphanages.
This event empowered Thomas and the other volunteers to expand their ministries to include food banks, a prisoner outreach, dental and medical clinics and student scholarships. Those ministries continue today.
Baldacchino shared how Thomas lived an austere lifestyle because he followed Jesus’ teaching that when you minister to the poor – physically and spiritually – you minister to Jesus.
“Father Thomas had an amazing gift from God that enabled him to teach others about spiritual truths in such a simple language that even an elementary school child could understand,” Baldacchino said to the group.
Thomas was born on March 1, 1928, in Seffner, Florida. He attended Catholic schools in Tampa. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1945 and was ordained 13 years later in San Francisco. The order assigned him to El Paso in 1964 to lead Our Lady’s Youth Center in South El Paso. The center catered to the poor.
As his ministries expanded into New Mexico and Mexico, he became an in-demand presenter at workshops, seminars and conferences around the world. Despite his renown, he did his best to maintain a simple lifestyle.
Tuesday’s decision was a necessary step to formally open the canonization investigation. The initial inquiries began in 2011 after the customary five-year waiting period following a person’s death. A pope may decide to shorten the period.
By 2012, formal permission was granted to publish devotional materials that requested Thomas’ intercession, according to a story in the Catholic Review.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will designate a team to represent Thomas and supply whatever necessary documents to the Vatican’s dicastery for its investigation that could take years, decades or more. The team will include someone from the Las Cruces diocese.
Representatives for the Diocese of Las Cruces could not be reached Wednesday afternoon.
If successful, Thomas would be the second saint with El Paso ties.
The first is St. Pedro de Jesus Maldonado, who was born in 1892 in Sacramento, Chihuahua, Mexico. He was the first priest ordained in El Paso’s St. Patrick Cathedral on Jan. 25, 1918. He served the people of Mexico and died a martyr Feb. 11, 1937, during a time when the government persecuted Christians.
Maldonado’s focus was on the religious teaching of children and promoted the devotion and adoration to the Blessed Sacrament and the Virgin Mary. He worked hard for the conversion of more people to believe in Jesus Christ, according to a placard in the back of the cathedral.
Pope John Paul II canonized Maldonado on May 21, 2000.
St. Patrick Cathedral houses a reliquary that contains a piece of one of Maldonado’s fingers.
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