Pope: May example of Blessed Fr. Torres Padilla sustain priests in their ministry

By Edoardo Giribaldi

On Sunday Pope Francis paid tribute to a nineteenth-century Spanish priest, Fr. José Torres Padilla, whom he recalled “distinguished himself as a priest confessor and spiritual guide, bearing witness to great charity with those in need.” Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, beatified Fr. Torres Padilla on Saturday 9 November at a celebration in Seville, Spain. The Pope prayed that his example may “sustain priests in their ministry” as he called for a round of applause of all those present in the Square for the newly beatified.

In his homily for the beatification in Seville’s Cathedral, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, described Fr. José Torres Padilla in his great generosity, “a type of payday lender” for his works of free charity. He noted he was “an atypical canon" having those on the margins of society as his friends, drawing close to the needy in Seville's most difficult neighborhoods where few dared to enter. And he demonstrated a “deep unity with the Lord,” the primary source of his “inner strength.”

Scripture imagery mirrored in life

The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints drew a parallel between the Spanish priest and a commentary by Isidore of Seville on the text chosen for the liturgy from the book of the Prophet Ezekiel. “A stream of water flowed out from under the threshold of the temple,” the Cardinal recalled, then explaining the double meaning of the image: “Baptism, which is the water that quenches and restores all who thirst,” but also “given that the prophetic vision speaks of a water flowing from the right side of the temple,” a reference “to the open side of Christ crucified” from which ”blood and water flowed out.”

“Being contemplative in action”

Such an image, of a torrent “that brings life, renews and produces much fruit, I like to attribute to the new Blessed Fr. José Torres Padilla,” the Cardinal said, calling him an “ever-faithful priest” and “ready to give of himself, to go out of himself to go with charity to others.” A quality that brought out in the Spanish priest “the unity of life” and “being contemplative in action.”

Study, meditation and concrete service

Cardinal Semeraro then described various traits of Blessed Fr. Torres Padilla's personality, such as his ability to combine prayer and study: “He would spend two hours studying and three hours meditating on what he had studied. But this did not stop him from devoting much time during his days to the service of those most in need. 

On the “wrong side” of Seville

A life lived “in poverty” - he dressed only in a single “patched cassock” - and drew close to the needy and the sick, often relegated to the neighborhoods on the “wrong side” of the Guadalquivir, the river that divides Seville, where “crime” prevailed. Yet, the Spanish priest went there without any fear, cleaning and fixing their beds in his service to them.

The tomb of Blessed Fr. José Torres Padilla

The example of the new Blessed

Of Blessed Fr. Torres Padilla, Cardinal Semeraro also recalled his “spiritual direction,” which was capable of making his “reputation for holiness” known to the point of earning him the nickname “El Santero (the Saint Maker).” Beneficiaries of this salutary “contagion” include St. Angela of the Cross, who founded the Institute of the Sisters of the Cross under the direction of the Spanish priest.

How holiness encourages one another

“Holiness gives encouragement to one another,” Cardinal Semeraro concluded. A unity that mirrors the Divine unity and which, reaffirming Pope Francis' words, is the “matrix of the bond between us Christians” and the “burning furnace of love” capable of burning “our selfishness, our prejudices, our inner and outer divisions” and an experience that is “certainty” of a final “communion with God.”