​Resurrection  of  the  Lord  Parish

​​​ Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo (1538-1606)    

Diocesan Publication 

In times of crisis, God always “surprises” the Church with unlikely saints, through whom Christ’s light radiates beyond their local communities to illumine the universal Church. Charles Borromeo was such a saint: appointed Archbishop of Milan at twenty-one by his papal uncle, epitomizing the corruption that the Reformers condemned, Charles instead inspired a revival that reinvigorated a Church devastated by the Reformation. His less well-known contemporary, Toribio de Mongrovejo, was God’s “saintly surprise” in the New World. Spanish-born lawyer, professor, head of the feared Inquisition, Toribio was still a layman when a grateful king appointed him Archbishop of far off Lima. Once in Peru, however, Toribio was appalled at the abuse of indigenous peoples by the occupying conquistadores—his fellow countrymen—and by the complicity of the clergy. He became the natives’ devoted advocate, building churches, schools, hospitals, and the first seminary in the Americas, publishing catechisms and prayerbooks in the native languages he painstakingly mastered. Four hundred years later, whenever Pope Benedict welcomes Latin American bishops to Rome, he always invokes “the shining example of San Toribio.”

—Peter Scagnelli

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