Isidoro Zorano Ledesma was born on 13 September 1902 in
Buenos Aires as the third of five to immigrants who left
Spain for economic reasons; a brother that followed after his birth was Francisco and he had two sisters. In 1905 his parents had secured their economic stature and so decided to return to Spain with the intention of returning to
Argentina at some stage. He settled in
Logroño where he did his education right through to high school. His father died in 1912 which was unexpected and so his mother decided to remain there. In January 1916 he met
Josemaría Escrivá, who was a new classmate that had just arrived from
Barbastro and the two became close friends. In 1918 he graduated from high school and began to prepare for an entrance examination into the Special School for Industrial Engineers in
Madrid where he relocated in October 1919. In 1924 the collapse of the Spanish bank of
Rio de la Plata meant the loss of almost all of the Zorzano's savings and so he and his brother Francisco mulled over stopping their studies to support their mother but she and their sisters wanted them to continue their studies and so Zorzano gave private classes to students to bring in some income. In June 1927 he earned a degree in industrial engineering and he gave classes to prepare students for the entrance exam that he once faced. For a brief time he worked in the shipyards of Matagorda in
Cádiz but decided to go to
Málaga to work in the Andalusian Railroads Company while still giving private lessons there. On 24 August 1930 he had a long conversation with his friend Escrivá who was now a
priest and the latter described the vision of
Opus Dei that he had received in 1928; Zorzano realized it aligned with his spiritual aspirations and enthusiastically joined. He returned to Málaga where his spiritual life deepened: he attended
Mass on a more frequent basis and received the
Eucharist on a more frequent basis. His love and charitable outreach to the poor never ceased for he spent hours giving classes to poor children in some schools that the Adoration Sisters and the
Jesuit priest José Manuel Aicardo managed. Zorano was never critical nor judgmental and never discriminated people based on their political beliefs. His students often recalled that he would provide special classes without charge and he tried to distribute food to those that needed it while giving up for himself what he needed even once fainting in the street as a result. In June 1936 there were some individuals who told him that certain political groups wanted to kill him due to his faith so he moved to
Madrid in an effort to remain safe; this anti-religious sentiment was augmented during the
Spanish Civil War that started at this time. He could have fled from the nation but he decided to remain and place his faith in a precarious Buenos Aires
birth certificate despite knowing he was in danger regardless of his papers. He bought to Opus Dei bread and wine to celebrate Mass in secret and kept sacred hosts in his room so that those who were in hiding could receive it. Once the war ended he managed to obtain a position in Madrid with the National Railroad Company. In the beginning of 1943 he was diagnosed with a malignant
lymphoma but accepted this terminal prognosis with courage and interpreted it as the will of
God and so abandoned himself to this. He died several months later and was interred at the La Almudena cemetery; his remains were reinterred on 6 October 2009 to the church of Saint Albertus Magnus on 9 Benjamin Palencia Street in Madrid in the presence of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Madrid Antonio María Rouco Varela. ==Beatification process==