Friday, August 7, 2020
AUGUST 6, 1875: MARTYRDOM OF GABRIEL GARCIA MORENO
Gabriel García Moreno (Guayaquil, December 24, 1821 - Quito, August 6, 1875) was an Ecuadorian statesman, lawyer, politician, journalist and writer, twice constitutional president of the Republic of Ecuador, Catholic and martyr.
On the First Friday of August 1875, while leaving the Cathedral of Quito, after spending a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, as the great lover of the Sacred Heart of Jesus he was, he was assassinated by the henchmen of the Masonic sect. He died exclaiming: "God does not die!"
He is known as the "Thomas More of America." Lawyer, politician, president of Ecuador from 1861 to 1865, and from 1869 until his assassination, Gabriel García Moreno forms part of the history of Latin America as the important statesman who had a providential task: to bring Ecuador out of chaos, to sign a Concordat with the Holy See and consecrate his country to the Heart of Jesus.
He always denounced, with great wisdom, the evil that since then already afflicted our nations:
"Gentlemen, the great crime of our days is the vile apostasy of all the nations of the earth. All governments have failed to recongnize the social rights of Jesus Christ and His Church.”