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Retired Auxiliary Bishop Emilio S. Allué of Boston, the first and only Salesian bishop to serve in the United States, died April 26 at St. St. Elizabeth Hospital in Boston of complications from COVID-19. He was 85.
In 1996, St. John Paul II appointed him an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston. His episcopal ordination took place that September.
He resigned in 2010, at age 75, as required by Church law. He continued episcopal duties in the Boston Archdiocese. He moved to Regina Cleri Residence for Boston’s retired priests in late 2018.
He served in the New York Archdiocese as shrine director of the Marian Shrine, Stony Point, 1992-1995. In 2008 he returned to the shrine to consecrate its new chapel. Besides his strong Marian devotion, he actively promoted the devotion of Divine Mercy.
In Manhattan, he was administrator of St. Ann’s parish, 1979-1980 and parochial vicar of Mary Help of Christians, 1995-1996 and 1978-1979.
At Salesian Junior Seminary in Goshen, he served as director, 1972-1975, and director of campus ministry, 1967-1970.
Fellow Salesians recalled Bishop Allue for his sense of humor and his outreach to young men in formation for religious life as a brother and priest early in his ministry and later for his work among Hispanic parishioners in New Jersey and Boston. He was director of Hispanic ministry for the Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., in the 1980s.
Born in Huesca, Spain, he entered the Salesian formation program at Gerona in 1954 after completing secondary school and was admitted to the novitiate in Tarragona in 1955. He made his first vows in 1956.
He was then sent as a “missionary” to the United States, where he continued Salesian training at Don Bosco College in Newton, N.J. and then at Don Bosco Tech in Paterson, N.J., teaching math.
As a young brother, he returned to Europe in 1962 to study theology at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. His studies for the priesthood concluded with his ordination in 1966.
He returned to the United States in 1967, becoming an American citizen in 1974.
He earned a doctorate in theology at Fordham University.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston blessed the body of Bishop Allue before it was transported to the Salesian cemetery in Goshen April 29. He was buried that afternoon after a small, private rite led by the provincial, Father Timothy Zak, S.D.B. —CNS
