Alfredo Méndez-Gonzalez


Alfredo José Isaac Cecilio Francesco Méndez-Gonzalez was an American Catholic bishop who served in Puerto Rico.

Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1907 of mixed Spanish and Puerto Rican ancestry, Méndez-Gonzalez graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1933. He was ordained a priest on 24 June 1935 in Washington, DC. Pope John XXIII named him bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico on 23 July 1960. He was consecrated bishop on 28 October 1960 in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame by Francis Cardinal Spellman. He resigned as Bishop of Arecibo in 1974 and returned to California.
In 1993 Mendez-Gonzalez consecrated Clarence James Kelly, a former priest of the Society of Saint Pius V, a bishop, without papal permission, in a ceremony in Carlsbad, California. The consecration was announced after Mendez' death in 1995.