Servant of God Antonio Alcalde y Barriga

Antonio Alcalde Barriga (14 March 1701 - 7 August 1792) was a Spanish Roman Catholic prelate and professed member from the Order of Preachers who served as the Bishop of Guadalajara. He served in Dominicans convents across his homeland for over three decades as a teacher and prior before King Carlos III appointed him to a diocese in Mexico where he would be until being relocated to Guadalajara. It was there that his main legacies included the hospital and college he helped found there in addition to his dedication to restoring and constructing churches and schools. His beatification process opened in late 1994 and he became titled as a Servant of God. The cause later stalled due to low promotion and little interest though was resumed in 2013 upon new impetus for promoting his life and holiness. Antonio Alcalde Barriga was born on 14 March 1701 in Cigales in the Valladolid province in the Kingdom of Spain as the fourth and final child of José Alcalde and Isabel Barriga Balboa (who had been married since 1691). His paternal priest uncle Antonio Alcalde baptized him on 3 April in the Santiago Apóstol parish church. His siblings preceding him were his brothers Fernando and Pedro and his sister Inés. His mother died (29.7.1701) when she was 35 which left the children in the care of their father. He had worked on the farm during his childhood and worked with cattle while his father and uncle were responsible for his religious upbringing; his uncle encouraged his educational pursuits. In his childhood he had a habit of remaining long hours in the church that he would sometimes fall asleep which angered the sacristan. The sacristan would be forced to escort him home and this would prompt his parents to reprimand him for his behavior. He entered the Order of Preachers after he turned sixteen in 1717 in the San Pablo convent in Valladolid where he later assumed the religious habit in 1718. Alcalde studied Latin during his period of the novitiate.