Msgr. Pedro Lopez-Gallo participated in Vatican II, met seven Popes

A priest of the Vancouver archdiocese who participated in the inner workings and dramatic changes of the Second Vatican Council is celebrating his 65th anniversary.

Msgr. Pedro Lopez-Gallo was 23 years old when he was ordained in Mexico Dec. 22, 1951. Eleven years later, the historic and life-changing Second Vatican Council began.

“The change was dramatic. Today, people don’t know how difficult it was for us to change,” Msgr. Lopez-Gallo said in an interview.

“There were many things at that time, when they presented the agenda, we thought were impossible to accept,” such as the Saturday evening anticipated Mass, and priests celebrating Mass facing the congregation and in vernacular languages, rather than Latin.

Msgr. Lopez-Gallo, who went to Rome after ordination to study theology and diplomacy, found himself gaining access to the Council as the secretary of Cardinal Eugene Tisserant.

It was a “joy and privilege” to work for the dean of the College of Cardinals, he said.

The job took the new priest – who had, until then, expected to become a seminary professor or pastor of an obscure Mexican parish – around the world on diplomatic and pastoral missions.

In the 1950s, “the Pope never travelled out of the Vatican. The first Pope to go out was Paul VI. All the trips the Pope does now, Cardinal Tisserant did this.”

As a cardinal’s secretary, Msgr. Lopez-Gallo also got a taste of the inner workings of conclaves and personally met Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II during a 25-year period of working at the Vatican.  (He has since kept in touch with Rome and met Popes Benedict XVI and Francis).

After Cardinal Tisserant died in 1972, Father Lopez-Gallo decided he was ready to leave the Eternal City. When Archbishop James Francis Carney of Vancouver sent a letter to Rome asking for a jurist in 1979, he volunteered.

Msgr. Lopez-Gallo landed in Vancouver with little knowledge of the city or of the English language. He took up his post at the archdiocese’s Marriage Tribunal, handling annulments for Catholics in B.C. and the Yukon.

Archbishop Carney would seek out the priest’s advice on various issues, including the changes made by Vatican II and how to deal with people who rejected them.

Though the priest’s contract only outlined work in the tribunal, it wasn’t long before Archbishop Carney wanted him to serve as a pastor too. The hardworking Msgr. Lopez-Gallo agreed to fill a vacancy at St. Pius X Parish in North Vancouver for six months while the bishop looked for a replacement.

The six-month assignment stretched into 28 years, during which Msgr. Lopez-Gallo has celebrated hundreds of weddings, baptisms, and funeral Masses for his parishioners and worked hard to build them an elementary school.

“Four times, the bishop told me: ‘you cannot. The parish is too small. You don’t have enough children. You don’t have enough money.’” Eventually, he succeeded and the school opened in 1996.

His parishioners threw him a festive celebration, complete with a live Mariachi band, when he retired as their pastor in 2013 at age 85.

This December, Msgr. Lopez-Gallo travelled to Mexico to celebrate his 65th anniversary and Christmas with about 90 family members and friends.

“I am very convinced that the most precious gift God is giving us is our own family. Our family cannot be replaced by anything,” he said.

He visited the same church where the bishop of Xalapa, Veracruz, ordained him in 1951, in the ashes of the Mexican Revolution and the persecution of Catholics.

Born in 1928, Msgr. Lopez-Gallo saw the tail end of the years of revolutionary violence against Christians; priests and nuns were martyred, seminaries were closed, and public expressions of faith were suppressed.
“This idea (of ordination) was very difficult in Mexico because we had the persecution against the Catholic Church, in which many priests were killed,” he recounted.

After ordination, he served for a short time as an assistant pastor in a small Mexican parish. During the persecution, the pastor had been rounded up and shot along with other priests. He survived but afterward suffered from a host of mental health issues.

Much has changed in the Church and in Mexico in the last 65 years, Msgr. Lopez Gallo said. “I remember when I was a very young priest, just ordained. Now these people who I baptized are married, and some have died already. It’s a very long time.”

With his 90th birthday on the horizon, Msgr. Lopez-Gallo still works as a jurist at the marriage tribunal, writes a weekly column for The B.C. Catholic, and fills in for priests when they are busy, sick, or on vacation.

St. Pius X Parish plans to host a celebration in honour of his 65th anniversary Jan. 22 at 11:00 a.m.