Saint Pedro de Jesús Maldonado

Pedro de Jesús Maldonado Lucero (June 15, 1892 – February 11, 1937) was a Mexican diocesan priest who became the first canonized saint and martyr from Chihuahua City, Mexico. Pedro de Jesús Maldonado was born in a neighborhood of Chihuahua City known as San Nicolás and was one of seven children of Apolinar Maldonado and Micaela Lucero. When he was 17 years old, he entered the diocesan seminary, where he was known for his piety; once, after completing the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, he told the rector of the seminary "I have thought of always having my heart in heaven and in the Tabernacle." In 1914 the seminary was shut down due to the revolution and many seminarians fled to El Paso, Texas, but Maldonado remained in Chihuahua and studied music. Later, he continued his religious studies in El Paso. He was ordained a priest on January 25, 1918 in the Cathedral of St. Patrick for the Archdiocese of Chihuahua, Mexico by Bishop Anthony Joseph Schuler, S.J, Bishop of El Paso. Although Maldonado celebrated his first Masses in El Paso, his first Solemn Mass was in the Church of the Holy Family in Chihuahua on February 11, 1918. Maldonado was assigned to San Nicolás de Carretas where he worked with the Tarahumara Natives. He helped the poor with money and clothing, and raised and educated a poor orphan. Maldonado took a special interest in religious education, explaining Catholic doctrine through the use of photographs. Farmers would ask him to bless the fields. In January 1924, Maldonado became parish priest of Santa Isabel, where he had charge of the Sunday School. During the Cristero War (1926–29), Maldonado and other priests in Chihuahua were the targets of anti-Catholic violence, which continued for many years after. Revolutionaries changed the name of the town from Santa Isabel to "General Trias" as part of an effort to erase references to Catholicism from the state.