The evening Mᴀss of October 17 at the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Guayaquil was being broadcast live on social media when the accident occurred. Father Patricio Alfredo Sánchez Molinari, the parish priest and a Redemptorist, was at the altar. Roughly twenty-seven minutes into the transmission a large wooden cross mounted on the wall behind him came free and fell, striking him. Screams from the people inside the church can be heard on the recording. Those present moved quickly toward the altar to ᴀssist him and called for medical help. The Archdiocese of Guayaquil later stated that he died very shortly after the impact; by the time the ambulance team reached the church he had already pᴀssed away.

The same night the cardinal archbishop published a formal notice of death. The text expressed the Church’s condolences to the priest’s family, to his religious community, and to those who had known him, and invited prayer for his repose. It did not describe how he had died. Local journalists and social-media accounts filled in the sequence from the video and from witnesses. The crucifix was of substantial size, with a corpus of Christ. After the fall the figure itself was largely intact except for damage to one of the legs. The Mᴀss had proceeded normally until that moment. Father Patricio had already preached; the accident took place later in the liturgy while he was at the altar. He had been serving at Perpetuo Socorro for approximately four years. Before that he had worked in Manta for nine years, in the mission territory of Vinces, and earlier still in Loja.

His ministry combined ordinary parish duties with the Redemptorist emphasis on preaching and on attention to the poor. The church building where the incident happened is located at José Mascote 2648, between Maldonado and Calicuchima, in the center-south of the city, within the Central Vicariate. In the hours after the death the video circulated rapidly. Clips appeared on multiple platforms, prompting an immediate wave of messages of condolence. Some focused on the suddenness of the event; others noted that the priest had been speaking, only a short time earlier, about the fact that everyone present would one day die. The preliminary police ᴀssessment treated the case as an accidental death resulting from the impact of a blunt object.

No official determination has been released explaining why the cross detached. The Archdiocese has said that while an investigation is under way it will not comment further on the physical cause. Family members in Cuenca, where the wake and funeral were held, publicly requested that the circumstances be examined. They described the timing as remarkable and argued that the matter should be looked into in Guayaquil. The priest’s body was received at the Santa Ana cemetery in Cuenca. A funeral Mᴀss was set for the afternoon of October 20. In the days that followed, Redemptorist superiors and local clergy organized memorial Mᴀsses and a novena for the repose of his soul. The livestream that recorded the final minutes of the celebration remains the principal public record of how the Mᴀss ended.