José Torres Padilla
The Vatican record
- 14 March 2024 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2024)
Who they were
José Torres Padilla was born at San Sebastián de La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, on 25 August 1811, and was orphaned of both parents at nine. Ordained in 1836, he taught theology, church history and the Fathers at the seminary in Seville, and was a confessor, spiritual director, preacher and apostle of charity among the poor.
He served as a consultor at the First Vatican Council and became a canon of Seville Cathedral. In 1875 St Angela of the Cross founded the Company of the Cross for the most abandoned poor, and he watched over its growth until his death, so he is counted its co-founder. He died on 23 April 1878.
The miracles
A Sister of the Company of the Cross — Spain — 2018
On 3 March 2018 a sister of the congregation he co-founded felt a violent pain in her chest and fainted. She grew worse, and a scan on 11 April 2018 showed a massive pulmonary embolism with lung infarction; that same day her heart stopped and she had to be resuscitated. She recovered through Father Torres Padilla's intercession.
Why that counted as sanctity
The case of a Sister of the Company of the Cross was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle on 14 March 2024, opening the way to beatification.
Connected on this site
- Angela of the Cross Saint“In 1875 St Angela of the Cross founded the Company of the Cross for the most abandoned poor, and he watched over its growth until his death, so he is counted its co-founder.” — this site's research
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography of Blessed José Torres Padilla, with the miracle
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Not yet in Wikidata. Name as the Vatican spells it.
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.