About Francisco Rodrigues da Cruz
Francisco Rodrigues da Cruz, SJ (29 July 1859 – 1 October 1948), more commonly known as Father Cruz (Portuguese: Padre Cruz) was a Portuguese Catholic priest. Revered in Portugal for his apostolic fervor and charity, he visited prisons and hospitals in every city, gave alms to the poor and ministered spiritually to all, achieving a great reputation for sanctity. Some called him "Blessed Father Cruz" and "Apostle of Charity" still in his lifetime. Cruz expressed a desire to enter the Society of Jesus as early as 1880, but was unsuccessful; the Superior General of the Jesuits obtained permission first from Pope Pius XI in 1929 to allow Cruz to take vows as a Jesuit on his death bed, and then from Pope Pius XII in 1940 to take vows immediately and without the need to undergo a novitiate or of residing in a Jesuit community. He did pronounce his vows at the Costa Seminary in Guimarães on 3 December 1940 (the feast of Saint Francis Xavier, to whom he had great devotion). Cruz was the first priest to openly preach devotion to Our Lady of Fátima, at a time when most of the Portuguese clergy was still uneasy to show any sentiments favourable to the apparitions; this was before the Bishop of Leiria, José Alves Correia da Silva, recognised them as worthy of belief in 1930. The cause for his beatification was officially opened in 1951 and its diocesan phase took place until 1965; due to changes in the norms of beatification processes, a suppletory process was opened in the Patriarchate of Lisbon in September 2009 and was formally closed on 17 December 2020. The cause is now before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. With a missionary zeal for the salvation of souls, Cruz became famous for tirelessly travelling from parish to parish throughout Portugal, at the invitation of the local parish priests, to pray, to preach, and to bless. Cruz was in Vila Nova de Ourém in 1913 to preach at a First Communion Mass.
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