Our Founder

Venerabile Vicente Garrido Pastor

Some biographical information

1896 Born in Benaguasil (Valencia-Spain), 12 November.
1921 Priestly ordination.
1922 Superior of the Colegio Mayor del Beato San Juan de Ribera, in Burjasot (Valencia).
1924 Board member of the Association of Catholic Girls' Schools.
1925 Proposes the foundation of the Women's Youth of Catholic Action to the Archbishop of Valencia.
1934 Approval of the Christian Love Society (civil society).
1939 Teacher of religion at the San Vicente Ferrer girls' institute in Valencia.
1940 Approval of the Pious Union of Christian Love.
Direttore spirituale del Corpus Christi College.
1944 Professor of Moral Theology at the Seminary.
1956 Penitentiary of the S.I. Cathedral in Valencia.
1964 Diocesan approval of the Secular Institute Obreras de la Cruz.
1971 Pontifical approval of the Instituto Secular Obreras de la Cruz.
1972 Launch of the Cooperating Members Branch.
1975 He died in Moncada (Valencia-Spain) on 16 April.
1990 Start of canonisation process.
2016 Venerable Declaration, 14 June.

Vicente Garrido responded to the challenges of his time

- Promotion of the Christian laity, particularly women. He was a pioneer of his time, promoting the apostolic commitment of women in the Church and the world.

- Evangelisation of the simple and working classes. He did not remain passive when he saw how the masses of workers were turning away from God and the Church and, together with the young women entering the Institute he founded, he encouraged the promotion and evangelisation of the working classes, especially women. Through his words and witness, he defended the value and dignity of manual labour.

- Revitalisation of the Christian life through Spiritual Exercises, retreats, spiritual accompaniment, administration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and moral formation as a professor of Moral Theology in the seminary.

Founder of a secular institute

Don Vicente only wanted to “make the Gospel”, to sow Christ in souls, and he gradually discovered that to be effective in the apostolate, the presence of women totally consecrated to God, who shared their daily life with the people, was necessary. Already in 1934, a new charism was emerging in the Church: consecrated secularity – which later, in 1947, was approved by Pius XII with the apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia.

Faithful to the promptings of the Spirit, she promoted in the Workers of the Cross a lifestyle centered on God, profound and simple, contemplative and markedly missionary, encouraging them to exercise the apostolate in the workplace, in workshops and centers, in the family environment and in social relationships, in the apostolic works of the Institute (education, social projects, houses of spirituality and hospitality) and in the communities of the Church. She saw every place and situation as an opportunity to “transform the world through the Gospel”.

As a fruit of the “last hour”, in 1973, two years before his departure for heaven, Don Vicente founded the Cooperating Members of the Institute: women and men, priests, young and old, married and single, who wish to live the spirituality of the Institute and collaborate in its mission.

"The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Cor 5:14)

This is the motto that inspires and demands from the Workers of the Cross an intense life of relationship with God and the commitment to be leaven of the Gospel in the world.