Leopold of Alpandeire

Leopold of Alpandeire was born Francisco Tomás Márquez Sánchez on 24 June 1864 in Alpandeire, a small agricultural village in the Serranía de Ronda in the province of Málaga, Andalusia, Spain. He was the son of Diego Márquez Ayala and Jerónima Sánchez Bejarano, humble peasant farmers, and the eldest of their children. Baptized the day after his birth, he grew up in a poor but devout rural Catholic household. Like many boys of his class in nineteenth-century Andalusia, he worked from an early age as a shepherd and field laborer and received little formal schooling. He remained in his native district as an adult, living the ordinary life of a country worker until his mid-thirties.

His vocation to religious life developed after he came into contact with Capuchin Franciscan friars. In 1899, at the age of thirty-five, he entered the Capuchin novitiate in Seville and received the religious name Leopold of Alpandeire. He was received as a lay brother rather than as a candidate for the priesthood and was never ordained. After the novitiate he made his profession in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He served in several Andalusian houses, including Seville and Antequera, before being transferred to Granada in the 1910s. Granada became his permanent home for more than four decades.

At the Granada convent he was given the office of questor, the brother charged with collecting alms to support the community. For years he walked the streets of Granada and the surrounding countryside in his Capuchin habit, begging for the monastery and aiding those in need. He became a familiar figure in the city, known for humility, patience, and accessibility. People of every social background approached him for prayers, advice, and comfort. Witnesses later described a hidden life of prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament, together with simple charity that made him a popular spiritual reference point in Granada through the first half of the twentieth century, including the years of the Spanish Civil War.

He died in Granada on 9 February 1956 at the age of ninety-one. Popular devotion grew quickly after his death, and a cause for beatification was introduced. After the Holy See recognized his heroic virtues, he was beatified in Granada on 12 September 2010 in a ceremony presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, acting in the name of Pope Benedict XVI. His liturgical memorial is kept on 9 February, the anniversary of his death. He has not been canonized. His remains are venerated in the church of the Capuchin friars in Granada.