Doroteo Hernández Vera

The prison experience inspired Doroteo Hernández Vera to found a new work. On December 8, 1937, in Santander, he founded the Cruzada Evangélica (Evangelical Crusade). His intuition was innovative for the time: to form a group of consecrated women who, while remaining in the world (without religious habit or enclosure), would dedicate themselves to the evangelization of working-class environments and the assistance of marginalized people, especially prisoners and former inmates.

One of his first and most faithful collaborators was Ascensión Sacramento Sánchez Sánchez (1911-1946), who would be declared venerable in 2024. Together, they opened the "Albergue de la Merced" in Madrid in 1941, a shelter intended to reintegrate women leaving prison.

The foundation of the Cruzada Evangélica went through legal difficulties. In 1938, the Bishop of Santander, Msgr. José María Eguino y Trecu, approved it as a pious association. However, in 1942, due to the lack of an appropriate canonical status for consecrated laypeople in the Church, the bishop temporarily imposed common life, which deviated from the founder's initial project of secularization. The situation was resolved in 1947 when Pope Pius XII promulgated the apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia, officially creating the status of secular institutes. The Cruzada Evangélica was then recognized as a secular institute of diocesan right on May 18, 1951, and later elevated to the rank of an institute of pontifical right by Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1976.

At the same time, Doroteo Hernández Vera engaged in numerous social works. In 1942, after the great fire that devastated the city of Santander and left many families homeless, he financed with his own funds and promoted the opening of two schools for disadvantaged street children.

In 1959, responding to the call of Cardinal Marcello Mimmi, president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, he decided to extend the institute's mission internationally. On December 3, 1960, the first five missionaries of the Cruzada Evangélica left for Bolivia, establishing themselves in Yotala (Chuquisaca) on December 16, 1960. Today, the secular institute continues its work of evangelization and social action in Spain, Bolivia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

After a long illness (cerebrovascular disease leading to renal and respiratory complications), lived with great serenity and total abandonment to Providence, Doroteo Hernández Vera passed away on November 6, 1991, at the "Ascensión Sánchez" social work center in Coslada, near Madrid. His funeral was celebrated on November 8, 1991, by the local bishop, and his remains were interred in the crypt-chapel of the social work center in Coslada. The reputation for holiness of this humble priest, nicknamed by his contemporaries as a man who "passed by doing good without noise or exhibition," led to the rapid opening of his cause for beatification. The diocesan phase of the inquiry opened in 2001 in the Diocese of Alcalá de Henares, conferring upon him the title of Servant of God. After an in-depth examination of his writings and testimonies by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the Positio on his heroic virtues was submitted to Rome.

On December 21, 2018, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Doroteo Hernández Vera. By this act, he is officially declared Venerable by the Catholic Church.

For his beatification to be pronounced, the official recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession is required. To this day, the cause is under investigation and no miracle has yet been the subject of an official decree of validation.

The spirituality of Doroteo Hernández Vera is based on an absolute and filial trust in Divine Providence, which he compared to the abandonment of a "child in its mother's arms." Deeply contemplative, he knew how to combine a life of intense prayer with a bold social and missionary commitment, guided by the evangelical word: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."

His major legacy lies in the foundation of the Cruzada Evangélica, which paved the way for female secular consecration in Spain, allowing laywomen to live their consecration to God fully while being immersed in the realities of the working world and social peripheries. His work also continues through various educational and social institutions, such as the Colegio Doroteo Hernández and the Obra Social Ascensión Sánchez in Coslada.