Venerable Victor Emilio Moscoso Cárdenas

Victor Emilio Moscoso y Cárdenas (21 April 1846 – 4 May 1897) was an Ecuadorian Roman Catholic priest and professed member from the Jesuits. He served as a teacher in the COPEM college in Riobamba since 1892 and it was there that he was slain during the Liberal Revolution which had started in 1895. Moscoso was a noted philosopher and taught rhetoric and grammar to his students while serving as a professor; he also served as the college's rector from 1893 until his assassination. Initiatives to introduce his beatification cause commenced in the late 1990s during celebrations for the first centennial of his death. The cause was introduced not long after and he became titled as a Servant of God. Pope Francis approved his beatification after confirming that the slain priest had been killed "in odium fidei" (in hatred of the faith). The beatification was celebrated in Riobamba on 16 November 2019. Victor Emilio Moscoso y Cárdenas was born in Cuenca in Ecuador on 21 April 1846 to Juan Manuel Anacleto de Lima Moscoso (1803–64) and Maria Antonia Cárdenas (1818–29.1.1887). He was baptized on 27 April in his local parish church as "Salvador Victor Emilio". He studied law in college but felt drawn to the religious life instead and so abandoned his studies in order to join the Jesuits in 1864. He began his novitiate in Cuenca where the Jesuits had settled since the order was forced to leave Quito due to the anti-religious sentiment and persecution at the time. Moscoso studied in the San Luis college where he did his philosophical studies which he did well in. Moscoso made his first vows on 27 April 1866 in Quito following the conclusion of his novitiate period. Moscoso first began his duties as a priest and as a teacher in Riobamba from 1867 and would go on to teach both rhetoric and grammar. He later began teaching from 1892 at the San Felipe Neri college in Riobamba and from 1893 until his death served as its rector.