Ross Dizon has been good enough to translate an article on the Bishop who, among other things, sold the car he had been given to use t in order to give the money for the poor and continued to use public transportation. His cause for canonization was introduced Sept. 20.[The following is an adapted translation of a piece that is in yesterdayís
El Comercio de Per?. See
http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/Noticias/Html/2003-09-20/Mundo0055632.html
see also
http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/noticias/html/2003%2D09%2D21/mundoindex.html]
Model of Life
By VÌctor Ju·rez Carmona
It is said that Archbishop LissÛn used to visit the districts where the poor
lived in Lima and on one occasion a family approached him in an alley to ask
for money. Not having money, the archbishop removed his episcopal ring and
gave it to the family so they could pawn it. President Augusto. B. LeguÌa
gave the archbishop a car as a gift because the latter used to take the
street car to get around. Lisson sold the car, however, to use the proceeds
for his social projects.
That was LissÛn, a man of simple life, humble, and kind, on account of which
he earned the title ìBishop of the Poor.î He set up a cooperative, ìThe
Auxiliatrix,î a savings bank and a pawn shop, in order to raise funds for
the support of cloistered nuns, diocesan priests and his social projects for
the benefit of sick and the aged.
Because he preferred the common good to his own, due to his love for
justice, on account of his honesty and for always telling the truth, they to
took him, like Jesus Christ, wrote the priest Francisco Domingo Herrero, to
be crucified . And that was how it was. He was misunderstood. But though
he was calumniated, not a single word of reproach was heard from his lips,
recalled Cardinal Juan Land·zuri Ricketts, O.F.M., on one occasion.
When LeguÌa fell, letters and calls of intrigues began arriving in Rome.
Pope Pius XI summoned LissÛn to Rome in Febrary 1931, for his own good, he
was told. He never returned to Peru. He died in 1961 after years of
dedicated service to souls in Spainóin Madrid, Seville, Valencia and in
other dioceses.
His remains were repatriated to Lima in July 1991 as an act of justice, said
Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora, S.J., so that fellow citizens may honor
the humble Peruvian. LissÛn gave glory to God in Peru and abroad through
the testimony of a life of admirable service to the poor. He is a model of
Christian life and the cause of his canonization, if there is meaning to
truth, is an act of justice.
