Biography
José Trinidad Rangel
About José Trinidad Rangel
José Trinidad Rangel grew up in a farming family at El Durazno, near Dolores Hidalgo. Poverty and interrupted schooling delayed his preparation for the priesthood.
He entered the diocesan seminary in 1909, initially as an external student. A scholarship enabled him to live at the seminary. When military occupation interrupted its work, he continued studying in San Antonio, Texas, before returning to León. He was ordained in 1919.
In 1927, Rangel left Silao because he had not registered as a priest with civil authorities. The Alba sisters sheltered him in León, where he met the Claretian priest Andrés Solá. Although his brother offered help to leave Mexico, Rangel stayed to minister during Holy Week at San Francisco del Rincón. He attended sick people in the hospital there.
Soldiers arrested him on April 22 and took him to León. He was later transported by train with other prisoners. Rangel, Solá and the layman Leonardo Pérez were shot near San Joaquín on April 25, 1927.
The three became known as the Martyrs of San Joaquín. Claretian accounts describe an accusation that they had attacked and derailed a train. Those accounts record Rangel and Pérez as dying immediately, while Solá survived for several hours.
Rangel was beatified with twelve other martyrs in Guadalajara on November 20, 2005. At the ceremony, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins distinguished the priests’ pastoral ministry from the varied work of their lay companions. He also emphasized the group’s Eucharistic devotion as part of the Catholic Church’s remembrance of their lives.
Guadalajara commemorates Rangel within the November 20 memorial of Blessed Anacleto González Flores and companions.
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