Luis Chávez y González
|
Styles of Luis Chávez |
|
|---|---|
.svg) |
|
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Monsignor |
| Posthumous style | Servant of God |
Luis Chávez y González (1901 – 1987) was the seventh Bishop and third Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, and immediate predecessor of Archbishop Óscar Romero. Unlike Romero, who served for three years before being assassinated in 1980, Msgr. Chávez had an archbishopric that was long and low key. Chávez was Archbishop of San Salvador for 38 years (1938 - 1977), longer than any other Salvadoran bishop. Like his more famous successor, Msgr. Chávez is also a candidate for the sainthood. His beatification process was started in June 2001.
Chávez was born on April 24, 1901 in El Rosario, El Salvador in the Cuscatlán Department. Chávez and Pío Romero Bosque, a future president of El Salvador, were both students of a distinguished Salvadoran master, Néstor Salamanca, in Suchitoto, where Chávez would spend his latter years. He was ordained a priest at the age of 23, on November 16, 1924. He was parish priest in Ilobasco, San Juan Cojutepeque and the historic La Merced church in San Salvador. Fourteen years later, he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador at the youthful age of 37. He was named on September 1, and consecrated on December 12, 1938, and would reign until his resignation on February 3, 1977. Chávez was an influential bishop in the region, making pastoral travels to neighboring sees, such as Matagalpa, Nicaragua, which he visited in 1942. That same year, Chávez organized a eucharistic congress to celebrate the first centennial of the San Salvador archdiocese. He also established a Central American Bishops' Conference. In 1945, Chávez authorized veneration of the Child Jesus of Bethlehem image that reportedly appeared at the beach in Acajutla, in Sonsonate, El Salvador.
Msgr. Chávez had a conservative bent, inviting Opus Dei to establish bases in El Salvador. He approved the creation of a cinematic censorship office in 1963. Chávez also signed a bishops' letter warning against the dangers of Communism. But, Chávez was a prolific writer, and his 52 pastoral letters also included some that established a tradition of social justice in the archdiocese. In August 1966, he published an influential pastoral letter, "The responsibility of the layperson in the temporal order," which highlighted the Church's obligation to denounce injustice, the specific grievances of the Salvadoran people, and the attribution to those grievances to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few.
...
Wikipedia