Venerable Alphonse Gallegos

Alphonse Gallegos, OAR (February 20, 1931 – October 6, 1991), was an American Catholic prelate who served as Auxiliary Bishop of Sacramento from 1981 until his death in 1991. He was nicknamed the "Bishop of the Barrios." His cause for canonization was opened in 2006 and on 8 July 2016, Pope Francis named him Venerable in recognition of his heroic virtue. Gallegos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his father was a carpenter, and his mother a homemaker caring for their 11 children. He had a twin brother, Eloy, grew up in Watts, attended Manual Arts High School and received confirmation from then auxiliary bishop Timothy Manning. The family attended San Miguel parish, which was run by the Order of Augustinian Recollects. Gallegos attended Rockhurst University in Kansas City, graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, New York, St. John's University in New York and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He entered the Order of Augustinian Recollects as a novice in 1950. While a seminarian at the Tagaste Monastery in Suffern, New York, his superiors learned that Gallegos was born with a severe myopic condition. Although he had eye surgery prior to entering the seminary, his vision remained poor. Gallegos was ordained a Roman Catholic priest for the Augustinian Recollects on May 24, 1958. He spent eight years at Tagaste serving as chaplain at neighboring hospitals and religious communities and served in various capacities in his order's houses of formation. In 1972 he became pastor of San Miguel in Watts, and in 1978 of Cristo Rey in Glendale in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He was an advisor to Los Angeles Cardinal Timothy Manning on Hispanic affairs and helped set up a training program for the archdiocese's Hispanic permanent diaconate. He was transferred to the Diocese of Sacramento where Gallegos served from 1979 to 1981 as the first director of the Division of Hispanic Affairs of the California Catholic Conference.