Requested by the Congregation of the Mission and also by many faithful and
bishops of the Church in Perú and in Valencia, the process of canonization
of Archbishop Lissón will open this coming September 20, Saturday, at the
cathedral of Valencia (Spain). This cause is of particular interest to the
Vincentian Family and to the universal church. He was a bishop who kept
alive under a bishop’s skull-cap his identity as a Vincentian missionary and
evangelizer.
Archbishop Juan Francisco Emilio Trinidad Lissón Chaves was born in
Argentina (Peru) on May 24, 1872, and was baptized on May 26 of the same
year. Lissón was still a child when his father died, and all he had left
was his mother along with his maternal grandmother. He received from them
an excellent Christian upbringing. In 1884, while only 12 years old, he
entered the seminary of the Congregation of the Mission in Arequipa and
became a novice of the Congregation of the Mission in Paris in 1892. He
pronounced his vows at age 22 and continued his theological studies in
Paris. He was ordained priest in Paris on June 8, 1895 after getting a
dispensation for lacking the age required by canon law. He was assigned in
the same year to teach at the seminary in Arequipa. While he was there, he
was also dedicated himself to the formation of the clergy and attended to
the spiritual needs of the Daughters of Charity.
During his formation years, Lissón was outstanding for his sense of
responsibility, his fidelity to the rules of the Congregation of the
Mission, his great intelligence and love of learning. He showed an
outstanding ability to learn languages. He mastered French, English,
Italian, Latin and Greek. Moreover, he completed studies in Natural Science
and Jurisprudence at the University of Arequipa. He became superior and
director of the seminary in Trujillo in 1907, a responsibility he carried
out until 1909 when, at age 37, he was named bishop of the vast diocese of
Chachapoyas by Pope St. Pius X.
He was ordained bishop on September 19, 1909. He traveled on the roads and
through the mountains of his diocese on horseback, making available to the
poor with unconditional dedication his knowledge, talents and training. His
pastoral plan of action centered on the formation of priests, the education
and catechesis of children, the betterment of the poor in the rural and
forest areas, and likewise on the proclamation of the gospel among the
indigenous people. He rebuilt the seminary and the cathedral, and brought
electricity to the capital. Seeking to uplift the native population, he set
up cooperatives, machine shops, a printing shop, a sawmill, a carpentry
shop, and a rice mill with a warehouse.
He founded a newspaper, a high school with residential facilities for boys
and brought to successful end four diocesan synods, all between the years
1909 and 1918. Pope Benedict XV named him Archbishop of Lima on February
25, 1918. In his first pastoral letter of July 20, 1918, Lissón laid out
his pastoral plan of action. Consistent with his faith and his vocation as
shepherd, he continued and made better what had been developed in
Chachapoyas. He established four new minor seminaries, wrote a prayer book
for priests, a catechism for the ordinary folks and founded a Christian
newspaper named “Tradition.” He convoked and held several synods, some
assemblies and the Council of Lima.
In January 1931, without justifiable reasons, Lissón was asked to resign as
Archbishop of Lima and he was transferred to Rome. He accepted what he was
asked to do, which was presented to him by the Apostolic Nuntio, and
submitted his resignation as an act of obedience. After this event came the
misunderstandings, the poverty, the loneliness and the abandonment of him by
even his most intimate collaborators. He was forced to work as a guide in
order to pay for the cost of residing, from 1931 thru 1940, at the
International House of the Congregation of the Mission in Rome. During this
times he also attended to the spiritual needs of various religious
communities. During his stay in Rome, he got acquainted, at the Catacombs
of St. Callistus, with Marcelino Olaechea, a Salesian priest, with whom he
subsequently struck up a deep friendship.
At the outbreak of the World War II, he managed to be safe and he went to
Spain at the invitation of Marcelino Olaechea, who had become the bishop of
Pamplona. From there Lissón would set out and go about the towns and cities
exercising his ministry as a pastor and missionary at the service of the
bishops of the Church in Spain. In Spain, he lived his exile and took
refuge as a real saint, whose fame as a man of virtue grew everyday. From
1940 thru 1961, Lissón served the Church in Spain, the Congregation of the
Mission and the Conference of the Spanish Metropolitan Bishops. He ordained
priests several hundred Vincentian missionaries, he encouraged and
stimulated apostolic vitality, the formation of the members of associations
within the Vincentian Family and always maintained a high regard for the
Congregation of the Mission.
Lissón left an imprint of his missionary zeal and heroic virtue on some
dioceses in Spain. He made pastoral visits and administered the sacrament
of confirmation in many towns, either as the collaborator of the titular
bishop, be it of Seville or Valencia, or as a substitute in vacant dioceses
of, say, Teruel, Badajoz, Murcia, Albacete, Alicante or Jaén. His pastoral
activity was always marked by the depth of his theological life and, as a
faithful son of St. Vincent, by his love for the poor. In Seville, the
simple folks called him “the bishop of the poor.” Those who knew him
especially took notice of his faith, his trust in God and his austerity in
the practice of poverty.
The exiled archbishop spent his last years, from 1948 thru 1961, in
Valencia, next to Archbishop Olaechea, doing good in such apostolic labors
entrusted to him as pastoral visits, the Christian fostering of lay
associations, following up on the processes of the causes of martyrs, acts
of liturgical worship, meetings, etc. Equally valued also were the hours he
spent praying in the silence of retirement, his theological reflections or
the long periods of recitation of the rosary, decades after decades. During
these years his fame as a saint kept growing and spreading. Many people
sensed and valued the echo of his virtues, such that when the Vincentian
missionaries wanted to transfer him to Madrid in order that they might give
him care in their infirmary, Archbishop Marcelino Olaechea replied: “While
I am alive, Archbishop Lissón will not leave from here, dead or alive. His
presence among us is God’s blessing upon the diocese.” And it was in
Valencia that death came to Lissón on December 24, 1961. He was buried in
the cathedral where his body stayed incorrupt for thirty years. Upon the
request of the Primate of Peru and other Peruvian bishops, his remains were
transferred to the cathedral of Lima where they are now kept and venerated.
Many thanks to Ross Dizon for his generosity in translating this from the Spanish as it appeared at http://www.famvin.org/es/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=771
