Recaredo de los Ríos Fabregat

Recaredo de los Ríos Fabregat was a Spanish Roman Catholic bishop who served as ordinary of the Diocese of Tortosa in the mid-twentieth century. He was born in Valencia on 12 September 1888 and formed at the seminary of that archdiocese. Ordained to the priesthood on 13 June 1914, he spent nearly three decades in the Archdiocese of Valencia as a seminary professor and in pastoral and administrative posts before his elevation to the episcopate.

Pope Pius XII appointed him Bishop of Tortosa on 9 November 1943; he was consecrated on 2 January 1944. The historic see, straddling southern Catalonia and the northern Valencian Community along the Ebro, had suffered severe losses of clergy and church buildings during the Spanish Civil War. Reconstruction of parish life, restoration of damaged churches, and the formation of a new generation of priests therefore dominated the first years of his government.

His nearly twenty-year episcopate unfolded under the Franco regime’s National Catholicism. He promoted Catholic Action and other lay apostolates, attended to clerical education, and oversaw material rebuilding throughout the diocese. In 1962 he took part in the first session of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, one of the last public acts of his ministry.

He died in Tortosa on 17 July 1963. Recaredo de los Ríos Fabregat belongs to regional Spanish church history rather than to the calendar of saints; he was neither beatified nor canonized, and no feast day or patronage is attached to his name.