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November 12, 2021On the morning of November 8th, Father Francisco Caballero, 93, passed away at his brother’s home in Uruapan, Mexico.
Father Francisco was a Priest of the Archdiocese of Morelia, who completed his Seminary training at the seminary in Moctezuma, New Mexico, because of the persecution then raging in Mexico.
He later came to the U.S. as a ‘missionary’ to serve the Spanish-speaking Catholics of the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio. This was before his retirement, and relocation to Sierra Vista, AZ in 1992.
He provided Spanish-language ministry and did Sunday Supply in a number of parishes in Cochise County, before he returned to spend his last days with his family in Mexico.
Father Caballero grew up in a Tarascan-speaking home in Michoacan. His father’s cornfields were adjacent to the cornfield in which the volcano ‘Paracutin’ exploded in 1947.
The famous photo of the church buried in the lava field, with just the tower sticking out, was where Fr. Francisco was baptized.
He attended the “underground” seminary set up by the Mexican bishops in northern New Mexico, when the Mexican Government had closed all of the seminaries and Catholic schools. He began with a somewhat clandestine ministry in his native place, as a ‘circuit rider’ –riding horseback to minister to about two dozen isolated villages.
As a man of small stature, he loved to recount his impressive prowess as a horseman – living up to his surname: “caballero’!!He accepted the invitation to become a ‘missionary’ in the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio.
Fr. Greg Adolf, Pastor at St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church in Sierra Vista says, "He was much loved and a wonderful Priest."
