René Henry Gracida

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Gracida was the second child of Enrique J. Gracida Carrizosa, an architect and engineer of Mexican descent, and Mathilde Derbes, a fifth-generation French-American[1] Cajun. His mother was a devout Catholic while his father was less so, despite fleeing Mexico due to religious persecution. His great uncle, however, was a vicar general of a diocese in Mexico, and was very strict. Due to his strictness, his father hated Catholic clergy and was rather upset when René Henry Gracida became a monk. As a teenager, René was fascinated with the Jesuit martyrs of The Last of the Mohicans. When he became an adult, he entered Benedictine monastery. He was required to chose a religious name that will be permanent. He chose René Goupil, a French Jesuit lay missionary, which was approved by the diocese.[2]

He was a tail-gunner in the 303rd Hell's Angels in World War II.[3] After the war he attended Rice University, the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and the University of Houston, where he earned a Bachelor of Architecture.[2] He later attended St. Vincent College and St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. At St. Vincent Seminary, he earned a Masters of Divinity. In 1978 he was granted a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from St. Leo College and was also involved with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.[2]

Gracida was ordained a priest on May 23, 1959, when he was 36 years old. In 1971 he was appointed by Pope Paul VI as Auxiliary Bishop of Miami and was consecrated on January 25, 1972 as titular bishop of Masuccaba by Cardinal John Francis Dearden of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Archbishop Coleman Carroll of the Archdiocese of Miami, and Bishop Paul Francis Tanner of the Diocese of St. Augustine.[4] He was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee on October 1, 1975 and installed on November 6, 1975.[5] On May 19, 1983 Pope John Paul II appointed him as the bishop of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, where he remained until his resignation at 73.

In 1985, Gracida accused a Planned Parenthood clinic in Rhode Island of procuring abortions and in 1990 he accused two doctors of the same crime and banned them from entering the church.[6] In 1994, Gracida issued an interdiction forbidding a Texas politician from receiving Communion.,[7] On September 25, 2017, Gracida posted on his blog and publicly signed a "Filial Correction" of Pope Francis, being the first canonically regular bishop of the Catholic Church to sign the document.[3] In 2018, he called excommunication over immigration policy as "scandalous".[8]

• 2016 – An Ordinary’s Not So Ordinary Life[2]

• "Abyssus Abyssum Invocat: Commentary on all things Catholic, Roman, that is!" (blog maintained by Bishop Gracida)
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Pensacola–Tallahassee
• Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami