Father Richard Thomas, the Jesuit who spent four decades serving the poor along the United States–Mexico border, has taken a significant step toward canonisation after the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to advance his cause.
The decision, made at the bishops’ meeting in Baltimore, draws national attention to a priest whose radical simplicity, intense spirituality and tireless charity marked him out as a distinctive presence in one of the poorest regions of the continent.
The request was introduced by Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces, who described Thomas as a man who lived the Gospel with disarming literalness. He quoted Christ’s exhortation: “When you hold a lunch or dinner, do not invite your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbours … invite the poor. Blessed indeed will you be, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
