Spanish apostolate launches cause for canonization of its founder, Father Ángel Ayala

The Catholic Association of Propagandists (who propagate, or spread, the faith) will begin the cause for the canonization of its founder, the Jesuit priest Ángel Ayala, on Feb. 20.

In 1908, the Spanish Jesuit chose eight members of the Marian Congregation of the Luises — inspired by the spirituality of St. Aloysius (Luis) Gonzaga — and told them: “Let’s see what the Lord wants from us.” Among them was a young Ángel Herrera Oria, who went on to become bishop of Málaga and a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

The following year, the National Catholic Association of Young Propagandists was founded, later becoming the National Catholic Association of Propagandists and, finally, the Catholic Association of Propagandists (ACdP, by its Spanish acronym), a private association of lay faithful “who wish to respond to their vocation to holiness through the evangelization of public life and the ordering of social structures according to the demands of the kingdom of God,” according to its statutes.

The ACdP is one of the most dynamic ecclesial organizations in Spain, especially through its extensive network of educational centers, the largest in Spain, which has served more than 250,000 students.

Almost 120 years later, the apostolate will launch the cause for the canonization of Ayala (1867–1960) on Feb. 20, the 66th anniversary of his death.

“He was a great ascetic who conquered himself,” said Pablo Sánchez Garrido, national secretary for canonization causes at the ACdP. “He initially experienced his own vocation as an inner struggle. When he saw it clearly, he embraced it wholeheartedly. He was a determined person, an apostle who also wanted to form others, who wanted to invite them to bring Christ to all areas of society.”

Sánchez said the Jesuit’s life was characterized by his humility and self-control, despite having “a very strong temperament,” which he channeled into forming leaders.

“He takes laypeople and young people, trains them, and launches them into public life to carry out an apostolate — a social, cultural, educational, and journalistic apostolate — all areas of public life that were completely neglected in Spain because secularism was very strong,” the postulator explained.

It is no coincidence that the founding of the ACdP coincided with the Tragic Week in Barcelona in 1909, ​​a revolution in which convents and churches were burned and several people were martyred. Ayala also suffered the dissolution of the Society of Jesus during the Second Republic and had to go into hiding during the 1936–1939 Civil War.

‘Select minorities’

The priest, who sent forth the first Propagandists to hold Catholic rallies in theaters and bullrings with great success, prioritized the formation of laypeople, what were then known as “select minorities.”

Although this expression might sound elitist today, the term was coined in his work “Formation of the Select” and had a different meaning far removed from classism: “For him, a leader, a select one, could be either a worker evangelizing his fellow workers or a university professor.”

The ACdP thus also gave rise to organizations such as the Federation of Catholic Students, the Social Institute for Workers, the Catholic Publishing House, and the Library of Christian Authors.

The Jesuit conceived of this leadership very clearly: “He insisted on the primacy of the spiritual; that is the starting point. Without that, we are talking about a political or union leader,” explained Sánchez, who emphasized that for the Jesuit, “a leader is an apostle, someone who has a need to bring the faith to the public sphere, to the social sphere, wherever it is lacking, and without fear, without cowardice.”

This boldness, the postulator explained, was a common characteristic of Ayala and his disciple Herrera Oria, who, had they lived today, “would have gone on social media, on the front lines of evangelization in the digital world or any other emerging field of evangelization.”

This spirit lives on in the work of the ACdP, which in recent years has launched advertising campaigns with messages on various current cultural debates and has organized the Resurrection Festival, a large concert to celebrate Easter that draws thousands of people each year.

The postulator said he believes that Ayala would look upon the ACdP today “as a father, as a spiritual director. He would look upon it with affection, but also with demanding standards, asking it to return to its origins, in those aspects where it may require it, and above all to renew that primacy of spirituality, a strong and solid spirituality. He would also remind the ACdP of the importance of the social dimension.”

‘The cause will proceed relatively quickly’

The cause now being opened is based, like all others, on Ayala’s reputation for holiness and on extensive historical research.

“We’ve done our homework in advance, we’ve worked with the Historical Commission, we’ve compiled a considerable amount of documentation, and testimonies were taken to ensure their preservation because they came from elderly people,” explained the postulator, leading him to believe that “the cause will proceed relatively quickly.”

In this work, previously unseen images of Ayala have been discovered, recorded on Super 8 film, which were kept by the Missionary Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to which the Jesuit served as spiritual director. In the footage, he offers spiritual advice to the missionaries who went to Chile.

In the recording, titled “Advice from a Dear Old Man,” which ACI Prensa has obtained exclusively, Ayala, at age 90, invited people to “meditate on the last things from time to time” and on God’s providence in their lives, as well as to cultivate joy: “Without joy there is no spiritual life, that’s why good religious enjoy it. Those who do not enjoy it, if it’s a habitual thing, cannot go on with their life and sooner or later they leave.”