At their November Plenary Assembly, the bishops of the United States held a canonical consultation on a possible cause of beatification and canonization for Reverend Richard M. Thomas, a priest of the Society of Jesus. Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, and Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces, facilitated the discussion by the bishops. With 206 votes in favor, 4 votes against, and 1 abstention, the bishops affirmed their support for the advancement of the cause of beatification and canonization on the diocesan level.
Fr. Richard Thomas, SJ, was ordained to the priesthood in San Francisco, California, in 1958. In 1964, he was assigned to lead Our Lady’s Youth Center in El Paso, Texas, a ministry to the poor in south El Paso. He expanded the reach of Our Lady’s Youth Center to New Mexico and across the border to areas of Juarez, Mexico.
On Christmas Day in 1972, prompted after reading Luke 14:12-14 where Jesus tells his followers to invite the poor – not their rich friends – to dine, Father Thomas invited a prayer group from El Paso to join him in serving dinner to the poor who lived and worked at a garbage dump in Juarez, Mexico. While Father Thomas and his group only took enough food to feed 150 people, more than 300 people came to dinner, and each was served a full meal. With leftovers that were donated to three orphanages after the dinner, the group later realized that the Lord had multiplied the food; the event prompted the group to not only return to the garbage dump on a regular basis, but also led them to advocate for better income for the trash pickers, and start additional ministries to the poor such as food banks, a prisoner outreach program, a medical and dental clinic, and student scholarship assistance.
You can read more about Fr. Thomas here.