Blessed Mariano de Jesús Euse Hoyos

Mariano de Jesús Euse Hoyos (14 October 1845 - 13 July 1926) was a Colombian Roman Catholic priest ordained in 1872 for the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Osos. He worked in his parish as a staunch defender of the poor and of rural laborers - he himself came from rural origins - and encouraged popular devotions amongst the Colombian faithful. His beatification received the approval of Pope John Paul II who presided over the celebration on 9 April 2000. Mariano de Jesús Euse Hoyos was born on 14 October 1845 as the eldest of seven children to Pedro Euse and Rosalía de Hoyos Echeverri during an uncertain period of anti-religious sentiment. He was baptized on 15 October and received the sacrament of Confirmation in 1847. His great-grandfather Pedro Euse hailed from France. In 1860 he entered the College of Saint Joseph of Marinilla where he studied mathematics and passed all his studies with excellent results. From the age of sixteen in 1861 he harbored the desire of becoming a priest and was then entrusted to the care of his priest uncle Firmino Hoyos - the parish priest of Girardota - and received from him a cultural and spiritual formation. He commenced his studies for the priesthood on 3 February 1869 at a new seminary opened in Mendellin and was ordained as a priest on 14 July 1872. He began his clerical career as a curate to his uncle until his uncle died in January 1875 and he was transferred to Yarumal in 1876. In 1878 he was assigned as a parish priest in Angostura and spent the remainder of his life there. It was there that he became well aware of the parish difficulties such as the construction of an appropriate parish church. He then became the parish priest on 21 January 1882 after the death of the old and frail priest Rudesindo Correa. He became well noted for being a simple and effective preacher and tended to the social and spiritual needs of the poor of the region with a particular emphasis on rural laborers; he often called the poor "Christ's nobles".