Archbishop José Víctor Manuel Valentín Sánchez Espinosa

Archbishop José Víctor Manuel Valentín Sánchez Espinosa, Archbishop of Puebla de los Ángeles, was born on May 21, 1950, in Santa Cruz, in the Archdiocese of Puebla de los Ángeles. He received his priestly formation at the seminary of Puebla and was ordained a priest for Puebla de los Ángeles on June 6, 1976. In 1979 he obtained a licentiate in liturgy from the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant'Anselmo in Rome. As a priest he served as spiritual director and coordinator at the seminary of Puebla, founder of the Mexican Society of Liturgists, parish priest, and executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Liturgical Ministry. He also collaborated with CELAM on the drafting of its Manual of Liturgy. On March 2, 2004, he was appointed Titular Bishop of Ambia and Auxiliary Bishop of México. He received episcopal ordination on March 26, 2004, with Norberto Rivera Carrera as principal consecrator and Rosendo Huesca Pacheco and Giuseppe Bertello as co-consecrators. At the twenty-first ordinary assembly of CELAM he was elected secretary general for the period 2007 to 2010. On February 5, 2009, he was appointed Archbishop of Puebla de los Ángeles, and he was installed on April 2, 2009.