Saint Ezequiel Moreno

Saint Ezequiel Moreno Díaz was a Spanish Augustinian Recollect, a missionary in the Philippines and Colombia, the first vicar apostolic of Casanare, and bishop of Pasto. The Church commemorates him on August 19, the anniversary of his death.

He was born on April 9, 1848, in Alfaro in La Rioja, into the poor family of the tailor Félix Moreno and Josefa Díaz. Following the example of his older brother, he entered the Augustinian Recollects at Monteagudo in Navarre. He received the habit on September 21, 1864, as Brother Ezequiel of Our Lady of the Rosary, and a year later he made his religious profession. In 1869 he set out for the Philippines with a group of confreres, and in 1871 he was ordained a priest in Manila.

In the Philippines he was a missionary on the islands of Palawan and Mindoro and later a pastor on Luzon and in Manila. Even then he stood out for his special care for the sick and the poor. In 1885 he returned to Spain as prior of the monastery at Monteagudo, where future missionaries were trained. At the end of 1888 he led a small group of friars to Colombia to restore his order there.

In 1893 the Holy See entrusted to him the newly created Apostolic Vicariate of Casanare, and in 1894 he was ordained a bishop. Together with the missionaries of his order he preached the Gospel on the vast plains of Casanare and Arauca. In 1895 he was appointed bishop of Pasto in southern Colombia. As bishop he taught, spent long hours in the confessional, and visited the sick and the most remote corners of his vast diocese, and where he could not go in person he reached people through pastoral letters, the press, and correspondence.

His ministry in Pasto fell in a time of bitter political conflict and cruel civil war. The bishop fought liberalism firmly and without compromise, seeing in it a program to banish Christ from social life. A historian of his order acknowledges that on this question he read the directions of Rome in a restrictive sense. For this he met with hostility and false accusations. Paul VI stressed that while defending the faithful against the errors of his time, he showed great love and gentleness toward those who were in error.

In 1905 he was diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the nose. In December of that year he returned to Spain, and in Madrid he underwent several extremely painful operations; he bore some of the procedures without anesthesia and without a word of complaint. When the treatment brought no improvement, he wished to die in the monastery at Monteagudo, near the image of Our Lady venerated there. He died there on August 19, 1906, with his eyes fixed on the crucifix, and he rests in the church there.

Paul VI beatified him on November 1, 1975, and John Paul II canonized him on October 11, 1992, in Santo Domingo, during the celebrations of the fifth centenary of the evangelization of America, presenting him as a model for the pastors of Latin America. He himself died of cancer, and the miracles recognized in both causes were healings from that disease. The faithful invoke him as the patron of cancer patients.