Spain. This morning, in the midst of the Priestly Year, and 50 years after receiving the grace of the priesthood, after five days of hospitalization, Fr. Severino-María Alonso Rodríguez died in Logroño, at the age of 76, and 57 of religious life. He studied Theology in Santo Domingo de la Calzada and in Rome, where he received his doctorate in the Angelicum in 1961 and obtained other university degrees in Spiritual Theology and Mariology. He was also ordained priest there, in the city of Peter and Paul.

His ministerial service begins in Sto. Domingo de la Calzada as Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the school year 1961-62, and then he goes through Oviedo (62-64; 68-69), where he is the director of a university residence; the Lebanon (64-66), where he renders service as Spiritual Director of the Maronites; Rome (66-68), as professor and formator of Claretian students of several nationalities; in the Claretian Province of León (69-80), first as Vicar and then Major Superior of the Claretian Province of León, until he came to Madrid, where -more than residing- he had his centre of ministerial and missionary activities since 1980 until now. In the Claretian centenary community of Buen Suceso, in Madrid, he was been local Superior for more than twelve years; Director (1980-1985), Subdirector and unceasing collaborator of the Vida Religiosa magazine; Professor of the Regina Apostolorum School and of the Theological Institute of Religious Life, in which he has been Professor (since 1991) and Director (1982-88); member of the Theological Commission of the Spanish Conference of Religious (CONFER), writer, lecturer, assessor and untiring spiritual companion… Few airports, train stations and roads of Spain and America will not know his figure.

He is the author of more than fifteen books, some with about fifteen editions, and of many collaborations and articles, both long and short. Thousands of religious men and women have benefited from his reflection, good criterion and hope-full word, transmitted in a missionary service that was manifested in very different forms: conduction of retreats and recollections; conferences, short courses, classes, letters… in a style that reminds us of that of St. Anthony Mary Claret, for its depth and fruitful diversity. His brothers of Congregation have counted on him to participate in various General Chapters, an expert very much involved in the post-Council renewal of the Constitutions of the Congregation. Especially sensitive to the gift of the Cordimarian Filiation, which he lived with a remarkable depth, lover of life, of a life understood as inseparable from Grace, we commend him to God, full of gratitude, remembering his blood brothers who survive him, his other relatives and the entire Claretian Family, who together with other consecrated families, who also considered him as theirs, lament today -in faith and hope- his absence.
(For more details on his spirit, see www.masdecerca.com)