CRAWLEY-BOEVEY, MATEO

Known popularly as Father Mateo, modern apostle of the Sacred Heart; b. Tingo, Peru, Nov. 18, 1875; d. Valparaiso, Chile, May 4, 1960. He was born of an English father and a Peruvian mother. In 1884 his parents moved to Valparaiso, where he was educated by priests of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (Picpus Fathers), whose novitiate he entered in 1891. He was ordained in 1898. He founded the Catholic University of Valparaiso in 1903. After the favor of a cure at Paray-le-Monial, France on Aug. 24, 1907, he established the crusade of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home. Upon presenting to St. pius x his program for the sanctification of the family through its dedication to the Sacred Heart, he was commanded by the pope to dedicate his life to that work. Faithful to this charge and encouraged by the successors of Pius X, he preached the cause in many places throughout the world, speaking, as circumstances required, in any of five languages. He exercised a great spiritual influence upon the clergy: through the retreats he preached to more than 100,000 priests. A pioneer in the lay apostolate, he preached Catholic Action throughout Italy at the request of pius xi. In 1917 he founded the Tarcisians, a society of youthful Enthronement apostles, and in 1927 he initiated a movement to promote night adoration in the home. The best-known of his published conferences are in Jesus, King of Love (1st Eng. ed. Fairhaven, Mass. 1933) and Holy Hour (Eng. ed. Fairhaven, Mass. 1943).

[f. larkin]