‘With the Heart of a Shepherd’: New book highlights letters of bishop to persecuted flock

St. Ezequiel Moreno (left) and Luis Fernando Calvo (right), director of the Tomás Moro Institute. / Credit: Tomás Moro Institute

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 14, 2024 / 16:36 pm (CNA).

The Tomás Moro (Thomas More) Institute in Costa Rica presented the book “With the Heart of a Shepherd,” a collection of pastoral letters by St. Ezequiel Moreno, a Spanish bishop who evangelized Colombia and the Philippines in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The presentation of the book, the institute’s first, was held at the St. Ezequiel Moreno Seminary of the Augustinian Recollects in Pozos de Santa Ana, Costa Rica, and was led by Ángel San Casimiro, an Augustinian Recollect friar and bishop emeritus of Alajuela, Costa Rica, and Luis Fernando Calvo, the institute’s director, who wrote the prologue to this new edition of the pastoral letters of St. Ezequiel.

In his letters, the saintly bishop addresses the risks represented by the aggressive liberalism of the 19th century, “which was prevalent in various Latin American countries, including Colombia and neighboring Ecuador,” states a news brief sent to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

The news brief describes how in Ecuador, “in these last decades of the 19th century, there were terrible sacrileges and offenses to the faith of Catholics” such as “the murder of the archbishop of Quito, [José Ignacio] Checa y Barba, who was poisoned, as well as the sacrilege committed in Riobamba, where the troops of General Alfaro, a liberal, murdered Father Moscoso of the Society of Jesus, the rector of the St. Philip Neri Chapel (today known as the Chapel of the Sacrilege). In addition, they trampled on the blessed body of Christ in the sacred hosts.”

In another one of the letters, Bishop Ezequiel invited the faithful to “contribute to the construction of the Shrine of Our Lady of Las Lajas, a wonderful shrine nestled in the forest, a beautiful neo-Gothic basilica, built in the canyon of the Guáitara River” in southern Colombia.

The news brief also notes that in his letters one can perceive not only his love for the faithful but also great courage, since “by making these accusations he puts his life and his good name at risk, since he exposes the risks to the faith of Catholics involved in accepting or allowing the dissemination of liberal doctrines.”

“These positions taken by St. Ezekiel would even get him into disputes with other bishops that would eventually be resolved in his favor by the Holy See,” the text states.

Calvo told ACI Prensa that “St. Ezekiel had to go through difficult times, [including] outright anti-Catholic persecution, mainly by the liberal governments of the region and the [Masonic] lodges.”

In the face of these and other threats that still persist in society and that seek to reduce faith to the private sphere, Calvo emphasized that Catholics must “fearlessly present our proposals for the construction of a better society according to the guidance of the social doctrine of the Church. May the courageous example of St. Ezekiel inspire us to act according to truth and charity.”

Who was St. Ezequiel Moreno?

Moreno was born in Spain in 1848. In 1865 he made his profession in the Order of Augustinian Recollects in Monteagudo in Navarra province. He was ordained a priest in 1871 in Manila and worked for 15 years as a missionary in the Philippines.

In 1888 he left for Colombia, where he restored the Order of Augustinian Recollects and reactivated its old missions. He was named vicar apostolic of Casanare in 1893 and bishop of Pasto in 1895, both in Colombia.

According to the Vatican website: “He was a model of pastors for his fidelity to the Church and for his apostolic zeal. In 1906 he became ill and returned to Spain and died of cancer on Aug. 19 of that same year.”

He was beatified in 1975 and canonized in Santo Domingo in 1992 on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the evangelization of the Americas.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.