María Josefa Segovia Morón
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Venerable María Josefa Segovia Morón |
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|---|---|
| Laywoman | |
| Born |
10 October 1891 Jaén, Kingdom of Spain |
| Died | 29 March 1957 (aged 65) Madrid, Francoist Spain |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Patronage | Teresian Institute |
María Josefa Segovia Morón (10 October 1891 - 29 March 1957) was a Spanish Roman Catholic and the co-founder of the Teresian Institute that she established alongside the priest Saint Pedro Poveda Castroverde. Morón devoted her life to the functioning of the institute in Spain and served as its first director until her death.
Morón was proclaimed to be Venerable on 19 December 2005 after Pope Benedict XVI recognized that she had lived a life of heroic virtue.
María Josefa Segovia Morón was born in Spain on 10 October 1891 to Manuel Segovia Rubio and María de los Dolores Morón; her sister was Isabel Segovia Morón (she had eight children) following her marriage.
In 1913 she graduated from the La Escuela Superior del Magisterio in Madrid and returned to her hometown after this. It was there that she met Saint Pedro Poveda Castroverde who - upon learning about her - invited her to serve as the director of an institute that he wished to open; she was 22 and did not consider this to be an impediment despite what she perceived as potential inexperience. She accepted and the two went on to establish the Teresian Institute. She also began to pinpoint the areas the institute would focus on; Poveda said to her in 1922 in public: "You embody the spirit of the Teresian Institute".
Morón abandoned plans to live the conventional life to instead devote herself to the maintenance and the direction of the numerous academies of the institute that were opening across Spain. She presented this in Rome to Pope Pius XI in a private audience on 11 January 1924 and received the pontiff's canonical approval after having received initial ecclesiastical approval back in 1917.
She served as the institute's first director.
In 1936 she learned that her friend Poveda had been killed during the Spanish Civil War - which had started the month Poveda was killed - and she wrote of it to the institute not long after. She then had to grapple with directing the institute alone. She helped to prepare the canonization cause of Poveda and was one of the main witnesses called.
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