Bl. Leopold of Alpandeire

Francisco Márquez Sánchez was born in 1864 into a large, poor family at Alpandeire in southern Spain. He was drawn to religious life as a boy and joined the Capuchin friars, taking the name Leopold.

He lived at the Capuchin friary in Granada, where he spent his life in prayer and penance and serving the poor and suffering. He was known for his kindness to the needy and his devotion to Mary. His postulator said his holiness lay in small things done each time as if for the first time.

He died in Granada in 1956, aged ninety-one, and was beatified there in 2010.

When newspapers reported his fiftieth anniversary as a friar, he remarked to a brother: "We became religious to get away from the world, and now we end up in the papers."

Leopold of Alpandeire was beatified in 2010 by Benedict XVI.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.