Francisco Mora y Borrell
Francisco Mora i Borrell was a Catalan Catholic priest, who served as the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles from 1878 to 1896.Biography
Mora was born in Gurb, a village in the comarca of Osona in the Province of Barcelona, Catalonia, on 25 November 1827. Where in Spain he did his seminary studies is not known. He then emigrated to the United States, where he was received and ordained a priest by Bishop Thaddeus Amat y Brusi, C.M., for the Diocese of Monterey, on 19 March 1856. The bishop then assigned him to serve as a missionary priest in several rural parishes until 1863, when he was named Rector of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.
In 1859 the diocese was changed to the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. Shortly afterwards, Amat named him Vicar General of the diocese, based in Los Angeles. On 29 May 1873, Pope Pius IX named him coadjutor bishop of the diocese, and titular bishop of Mosynopolis. Amat consecrated him a bishop on August 3, 1873.
After the death of Amat on 12 May 1878, Mora took over the diocese. He served it for the next 18 years, during which time he worked to put the Catholic Church on a firm footing in the State of California. In 1895 he established The Catholic Tidings, the first Catholic newspaper for Los Angeles.
Mora was given a coadjutor bishop, George Montgomery, the first native-born American named to head the diocese, whom he consecrated in January 1894. He resigned his office on 1 February 1896 at which time the Holy See named him Titular Archbishop of Hierapolis in Syria. He then returned to Spain, where he died on 3 August 1905 in Sarrià, Barcelona, at the age of 77.
Bishop Mora Salesian College Preparatory School in Los Angeles, founded in 1958, was named in his honor.
In 1962 his remains were moved from Barcelona to Los Angeles and buried in the Cathedral.
