Alphonse Gallegos

Alphonse Gallegos (February 20, 1931 – October 6, 1991), OAR, was a Roman Catholic bishop who was declared a Servant of God in July 2008.

Early life

Gallegos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico where his father was a carpenter, and his mother a homemaker caring for their 11 children. He had a twin brother, Eloy, grew up in Watts, attended Manual Arts High School and received confirmation from then auxiliary bishop Timothy Manning. Gallegos, as a twin, was so intent on becoming a priest he built an altar in his parents' home.

Gallegos attended Rockhurst University in Kansas City, graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College and St. John's University in New York and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. While a seminarian at the Tagaste Monastery in Suffern, New York, his superiors learned that Gallegos was born with a severe myopic condition. He had eye surgery prior to entering the seminary but wore "Coke bottle thick glasses with his clerical garb" and was nearly blind.