Pope names as bishop a Spanish priest whose mother is in the process of beatification

Denver Newsroom, Oct 10, 2022 / 11:32 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed Father José María Avendaño Perea as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Getafe. His mother, Jorja Perea, who died in 2015, is in the process of beatification.

“A mother is always attentive to her children and my mother must have interceded,” the priest said during a press conference held regarding his appointment.

Avendaño is a native of Villanueva de Alcardete in Spain’s Toledo province and has been working as vicar general and vicar for clergy in the Diocese of Getafe, to which he has belonged since its creation in 1991.

He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Madrid in 1987. Since the creation of the diocese in which he will serve as auxiliary bishop, he has carried out a good part of his pastoral work in the city of Leganés, where he was archpriest. 

Since 2018 he has been bishops’ counselor of the general council of Caritas in Spain.

The diocesan phase of the cause for beatification of his mother was opened July 21 in the Archdiocese of Toledo. Avendaño himself has said that she “didn’t know how to read, but she knew the Gospel.”

The Church is studying the possible intercession of Jorja Perea in some cases of inexplicable cures of illnesses.

Born in 1928 and orphaned at a young age, she married Cándido Avendaño at the age of 25. The couple had five children.

The holy card distributed by the Diocese of Getafe for private devotion noted that “simplicity and humility are the marks that the Holy Spirit left on her soul” and that “the sick, needy, and poor always found compassion and mercy in her heart.”

Perhaps for this reason, but also because of the inspiration of the papal motto of Blessed John Paul I, the episcopal motto chosen by Avendaño was “Caritas et humilitas” (charity and humility).

The episcopal consecration is scheduled to take place on Nov. 26 in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Cerro de los Ángeles.

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