Venerable Ángel Riesco Carbajo

Ángel Riesco Carbajo (9 July 1902 – 2 July 1972) was a Spanish Roman Catholic prelate who served as a bishop in the Pamplona archdiocese and was the founder of the Misioneras Apostólicas de la Caridad. Riesco spent some time in Argentina as an emigrant before he returned to his homeland for a scholarship that saw his ecclesial studies spent in Madrid and Santander. He served as a parish priest following his ordination and in 1957 in Astorga founded a religious congregation dedicated to women. Months later he became a bishop but retired a decade later due to poor health that he later died from not long after. Riesco's beatification process launched in 1994 and he became titled as a Servant of God. His cause advanced in mid-2019 after Pope Francis named him Venerable upon confirming that the late bishop had practiced heroic virtue throughout his life. Ángel Riesco Carbajo was born on 9 July 1902 in Bercianos de Vidriales in the Zamora department in Spain as the first of three children. In his childhood he emigrated to Argentina when he was eight but later returned to his homeland after he turned twelve. He commenced his ecclesial studies under the Jesuits at the Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid and also in Santander after he had received a scholarship. Riesco received his ordination to the priesthood in Astorga on 25 July 1926 from the diocesan bishop Antonio Senso Lázaro and following this celebrated his first Mass on 22 August in his hometown parish. He first started as a coadjutor for the San Salvador parish in La Bañeza where he founded a small Catholic Action group since he prioritized working with them as an apostolic movement. In 1932 he founded the newspaper El Adelanto Bañezano. He was considered a good catechist that cared for the poor and tended to the sick and who also had a profound devotion to both the Mother of God and Saint Joseph. This helped characterize his pastoral career since he made these the focus for his mission as a priest.