Padre Antonio José Martinez, Cura de Taos

1:33:48 AM EDT
Hearing The Evil of Racism
[Rev. King delivered this sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1968--four days before his assassination.  I have shortened the text without changing the wording.  As a tribute, it was printed in the Congressional Record five days after his death.  I see a close connection between Part II of this sermon--against the "disease  of war"--and his assassination.

The sermon was brought to my attention by Rosalio Muñozwhom I have known for thirty-eight years.  He is a former student body president of UCLA and was the national coordinator of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, an anti-Vietnam War March that took place in East Los Angeles on August 29, 1970.  Well over 10,000 persons gathered and marched--including myself and some other Catholic clergy. It was the beginning of the PADRES organization in Southern California. About four people died in the protest, including L.A. TIMES reporter Ruben Salazar who, while escaping the melee in bar, was killed by a sheriff's projectile.

Because of space limitations on this blog, I have divided Rev. King's sermon into two parts.  Part I of Rev.King's sermon takes on the evil of racism, and Part II the evil of war.--JR]        

                       REMAINING AWAKE THROUGH A GREAT REVOLUTION
                                      (Text of Sermon - Part I: The Evil of Racism)

I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here this morning, to have the opportunity of standing in this very great and significant pulpit.....I would like to use as a subject from which to preach this morning: "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution." The text for the morning is found in the book of Revelation. There are two passages there that I would like to quote, in the sixteenth chapter of that book: "Behold I make all things new; former things are passed away."I am sure that most of you have read that arresting little story from the pen of Washington Irving entitled "Rip Van Winkle." The one thing that we usually remember about the story is that Rip Van Winkle slept twenty years.

But there is another point in that little story that is almost completely overlooked. It was the sign in the end, from which Rip went up in the mountain for his long sleep.When Rip Van Winkle went up into the mountain, the sign had a picture of King George the Third of England. When he came down twenty years later the sign had a picture of George Washington, the first president of the United States. When Rip Van Winkle looked up at the picture of George Washington—and looking at the picture he was amazed—he was completely lost. He knew not who he was.And this reveals to us that the most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution....all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they  fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in the world today...there is a human rights revolution, with the freedom explosion that is taking place all over the world.

Yes, we do live in a period where changes are taking place. And there is still the voice crying through the vista of time saying,"Behold, I make all things new; former things are passed away."Now whenever anything new comes into history it bring with it new challenges and new opportunities. And I would like to deal with the challenges that we face today as a result of this triple revolution that is taking place in the world today.  First, we are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood...our world is a neighborhood.Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.

Secondly, we are challenged to eradicate the last vestiges of racial injustice from our nation. I must say this morning that racial injustice is still the black man’s burden and the white man’s shame.It is an unhappy truth that racism is a way of life for the vast majority of white Americans, spokenand unspoken,acknowledged and denied, subtle and sometimes not sosubtle—the disease of racism permeates and poisons a whole body politic. And I can see nothing more urgent than for America to work passionately and unrelentingly—to get rid of the disease of racism [my emphasis]....The hour has come for everybody, for all institutions of the public sector and the private sector to work to get rid of racism. And now if we are to do it we must honestly admit certain things and get rid of certain myths that have constantly been disseminated all over our nation.

One is the myth of time. It is the notion that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice....Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.Now there is another myth that still gets around: it is a kind of over reliance on the bootstrap philosophy.... And so they say the Negro must lift himself by his own bootstraps.They never stop to realize that no other ethnic group has been a slave on American soil....And to this day thousands of these very persons are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies every years not to farm. And these are so often the very people who tell Negroes that they must lift themselves by their own bootstraps. It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.

We must come to see that the roots of racism are very deep in our country, and there must be something positive and massive in order to get rid of all the effects of racism and the tragedies of racial injustice.There is another thing closely related to racism that I would like to mention as another challenge. We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty.  Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging,prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world....How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of more than five hundred million people, some four hundred and eighty million make an annual income ofless that ninety dollars a year. And most of them have never seen a doctor or a dentist....I was in Marks, Mississippi, the other day, which is in Whitman County, the poorest county in the United States. I tell you, I saw hundreds of little black boys and black girls walking the streets with no shoes to wear. I saw their mothers and fathers trying to carry on a little Head Start program, but they had no money....I said, "How much do you pay for this apartment?" She said, "a hundred and twenty-five dollars." I looked, and I thought, and said to myself, "It isn’t worth sixty dollars."

Poor people are forced to pay more for less.Jesus told a parable one day, and he reminded us that a man went to hell because he didn’t see the poor. His name was Dives. He was a rich man. And there was a man by the name of Lazarus who was a poor man, but not only was he poor, he was sick....Dives went to hell because he was passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed, Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world—and nothing’s wrong with that—this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.... we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. 

The real question is whether we have the will.In a few weeks some of us are coming to Washington to see if the will is still alive or if it is alive in this nation. We are coming to Washington in a Poor People’s Campaign.... We are coming to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it signed years ago. And we are coming to engage in dramatic nonviolent action, to call attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible visible.Why do we do it this way? We do it this way because it is our experience that the nation doesn’t move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively,dramatically in terms of direct action.Great documents are here to tell us something should be done.

We met here some years ago in the White House conference on civil rights. And we came out with the same recommendations that we will be demanding in our campaign here, but nothing has been done....And I submit that nothing will be done until people of goodwillput their bodies and their souls in motion.And it will be the kind of soul force brought into being as a result of this confrontation that I believe will make the difference.Yes, it will be a Poor People’s Campaign. This is the question facing America. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor....

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11:27:31 PM EDT
Hearing A couple of weeks before he was killed.

[Part II of the Sermon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., 
on 31 March 1968, FOUR DAYS (!) before he was assassinated on Palm Sunday of 1968.  I think there
was a very close connection between this sermon and King's assassination so soon afterwards.  It reminds
me of the close time-frame between Archbishop Oscar Romero's  denunciation of violence in his country 
of El Salvador and his own assassination on March 24, 1980.  King's analysis and denunciation of the 
Vietnam War, in my opinion, resonates strongly with our current situation in Iraq. The sermon was reprinted
in the Congressional Record as a tribute on 9 April, five days after his death. - JR]

				
			REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING ON THE VIETNAM WAR

...I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and
bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the
social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. President Kennedy said on one
occasion, "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." The world must hear this. I
pray God that America will hear this before it is too late, because today we’re fighting a war.

I am convinced that it is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world.
Our involvement in the war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the
military-industrial complex; it has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation. It has put us
against the self-determination of a vast majority of the Vietnamese people, and put us in the position of
protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor.

It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to
kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we
spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called
poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.

Not only that, it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation. And here
we are ten thousand miles away from home fighting for the so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we
have not even put our own house in order. And we force young black men and young white men to fight and kill
in brutal solidarity. Yet when they come back home that can’t hardly live on the same block together.

The judgment of God is upon us today. And we could go right down the line and see that something must be
done—and something must be done quickly. We have alienated ourselves from other nations so we end up
morally and politically isolated in the world. There is not a single major ally of the United States of
America that would dare send a troop to Vietnam, and so the only friends that we have now are a few
client-nations like Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and a few others.

This is where we are. "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind," and the best way
to start is to put an end to war in Vietnam, because if it continues, we will inevitably come to the point
of confronting China which could lead the whole world to nuclear annihilation.

It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or
nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests,
the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a
civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an
inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.

This is why I felt the need of raising my voice against that war and working wherever I can to arouse
the conscience of our nation on it. I remember so well when I first took a stand against the war in Vietnam.
The critics took me on and they had their say in the most negative and sometimes most vicious way.

One day a newsman came to me and said, "Dr. King, don’t you think you’re going to have to stop, now,
opposing the war and move more in line with the administration’s policy? As I understand it, it has
hurt the budget of your organization, and people who once respected you have lost respect for you. Don’t
you feel that you’ve really got to change your position?" I looked at him and I had to say, "Sir, I’m
sorry you don’t know me. I’m not a consensus leader. I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at
the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I’ve not taken a sort of Gallup Poll of
the majority opinion." Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of
consensus.

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks
the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it
right?

There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he
must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of
goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain’t
goin’ study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I
will not yield to a politic of despair. I’m going to maintain hope as we come to Washington in this
campaign. The cards are stacked against us. This time
we will really confront a Goliath. God grant that we will be that David of truth set out against the
Goliath of injustice, the Goliath of neglect, the Goliath of refusing to deal with the problems, and go
on with the determination to make America the truly great America that it is called to be.
I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she
strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be as a people, our
destiny is tied up in the destiny of America.

Before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before Jefferson etched across the pages of
history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. Before the beautiful words
of the "Star Spangled Banner" were written, we were here.

For more than two centuries our forebearers labored here without wages. They made cotton king, and they
built the homes of their masters in the midst of the most humiliating and oppressive conditions. And yet
out of a bottomless vitality they continued to grow and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery
couldn’t stop us, the opposition that we now face will
surely fail.

We’re going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the
almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. And so, however dark it is, however deep the angry
feelings are, and however violent explosions are, I
can still sing "We Shall Overcome."

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

We shall overcome because Carlyle is right—"No lie can live forever."

We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right—"Truth, crushed to earth, willrise again."

We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right—as we were singing earlier today,

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne.

Yet that scaffold sways the future.

And behind the dim unknown stands God,

Within the shadow keeping watch above his own.

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair the stone of hope. With this faith
we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

Thank God for John, who centuries ago out on a lonely, obscure island called Patmos caught vision of a new
Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, who heard a voice saying, "Behold, I make all things new; former
things are passed away."

God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will but do
it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and peace.And thatday the morning stars
will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy. God bless you.

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10:09:40 PM EDT
[Frank P. Gonzales commented on my Blog of February 2, 2007 regarding Benjamin Maurice Read, translator of the Valdez biography of AJM.  His specific point was that Ignacia Cano, Read’s mother, was not from a family with long roots in NM as I had mentioned, but that she was from Galicia, Spain.  At age 13, she traveled with her parents  to Mexico before coming to NM. Ignacia married Benjamin Franklin Read who came to NM in 1846 as a soldier during the US-Mexican war.  Frank poses an interesting question of  a possible connection  between  Ignacia’s husband and (U.S. Founding Father) Benjamin Franklin who later married Deborah Read. ]

Dear Frank:

Thank you very much for your message via my blog.  How did you happen to come upon it?  I imagine it was on a search for Benjamin Read.  Besides the Feb. 2, 2007 entry, I refer you also to Read’s ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO published in 1912, if you can get it--try Amazon.com.   In 1998, on the 150th anniversary of the conclusion of the US-Mexican War, I translated into English his 1910 book (a century after the struggle for Mexican Independence began) Synoptico de La Guerra Mexico Americana, but did not get it published.  If you are interested, I might send it on.  Benjamin Read is an important pioneer in dealing with history from the perspective of a New Mexican.

Where were you born, and where are you now living?  I live in Temecula that is between L.A. and San Diego, closer to the latter.

I am sure that you are correct in stating that Ignacia was from Compostella, Galica, and not from long-time NM families.  I stand corrected. In general, the New Mexican settlers of the nineteenth century all had deep roots going back to Spanish stock of the 15th or 16th century.  If great-grandma Cano came with her folks to NM in the 19th century, they were relative "late comers."

Compostella is the heart of Galicia.  Have you ever been there?  Fascinating!  Its motto, printed on beautiful tiles sprinkled on the walkways of the centuries-old town, is NE PLUS ULTRA -- Latin for "Nothing Beyond" (except, of course, DRAGONS!).  This refers to the location of the place, synonymous with the great unknown, that was recognized as the literal edge of civilization until Columbus definitively showed otherwise.

Santiago Apostol is reputed to have evangelized all of Spain, and so is the country's main patron saint.  By extension, he is also the patron saint of all HISPANIC AMERICA.  He is greatly venerated as "Matamoros" in Compostella that became a Mecca of Christian pilgrims (on a par with Jerusalem and Rome as a place of pilgrimage).  In the early middle ages--I imagine because it was at what was considered as "the end of the world,"  people came to the extreme, edge, or end for HEALING!  Along the route, HOSPITALS dotted the trail from inland Europe of Germany, France, etc.  This is also the origins of various hospital guilds and knight Hospitalers and Templars.

There is another intriguing dimension of Compostella that is clear to me: the CONCHAS.  The sea-shell motif--looking like advertisements for Shell Oil (Santiago, ¡favor de perdonarme!)--are thoroughly imprinted on the architecture of the missions of California and somewhat of Texas.  We also see that Compostella motif--in a stylized "fan" shape-- on almost every piece of New Mexican furniture and much silver jewelry.  Most NMicans do not know that the symbol is not a form of the sun, but a SEA SHELL!

I have written a much fuller biography of Benjamin Read and his brother Larkin who have close connections to Padre Martinez.  B. M. Read’s younger brother, Larkin, married into the Martinez family.   If you ask me for it, and I find it, I'll send you a copy of that biography.  Benjamin M., with his brother Larkin, did most of the translation into English of the Santiago Valdez 1877 biography of Padre Martinez.  I expect UNM Press in the near future will publish an updated version of that English.  I have something to do with that.

Am sending copies of this note to Vicente Martinez who has a direct connection to Padre Martinez (and I believe to the Reads), and to Paul Espinosa who is producing a film documentary on Padre Martinez.  I will also include it in the blog.

I wish to STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to follow your intuitions on the connection between Benjamin Franklin (kite-key-lightning man who married his first love--by common law--DEBORAH Read) and Benjamin FRANKLIN Read, father of Benjamin MAURICE Read.  

If you have not done so, for more than a mention of Deborah Read, check out

http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/index.htm

and more pertinently

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Deborah_Read

You will find some good leads there.  The Mormon Church has many good resources and persons to help check out ancestral lines.  Ask around, and you'll get help on this.  Padre Martinez and Benjamin Franklin hand mamny things in common, and I am sure that Padre Martinez knew of and admired Benjamin Franklin for many reasons.  Franklin died on April 17, 1790--twenty months before Padre Martinez was born.

Peace!

Fr. Juan Romero



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2:07:58 PM EDT
From time to time, I deviate from the focus of this website--Padre Martinez-- for either a personal item I wish to share or something of public interest or concern.  The fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is one of these occasions.

He was killed on Palm Sunday, April 4, 1968. when Christians all over the world were marking the beginning of Holy Week by celebrating the victorious entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, where he was to be crucified and put to death before rising. 

Dr. King indeed was not only a prophet in the likeness of Moses who led his people from slavery to freedom, but also powerfully denounced the evil of racism and war.  As he began to successfully unify people of good will in this country and around the world to the cause of human rights based on innate human dignity, he finally began to get positive recognition.  That came not only from church folks, but also from politicians.  However, when he began to speak about peace regarding our involvement in Vietnam, he was told--mostly by the politicians--to be quiet, "keep out of foreign policy," and stick to race relations.  He did not, and was killed.

I commend to your viewing this three-minute montage, a moving tribute to Martin Luther King by Robert Kennedy. Paste it in your browser, and GO.

 http://www.theroot.com/id/45507?  =1478267941

A great influence on my life, almost exactly one year before I was to be ordained a priest, was the Letter From A Birmingham Jail that Rev. Dr. King addressed to his fellow clergymen of all denominations.

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

It deeply affected me, strongly influenced and inspired me.  He wrote this letter on April 16, 1963 that was my parents' twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, six months before the Second Vatican Council opened, and seven months before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was also, ironically, the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. 

Dr. King's letter was a seminal moral and theological treatise on law, making keen distinctions between just and UNJUST laws.  He quoted ancient Greek and contemporary Jewish philosophers as well as Protestant  theologians and medieval  Catholic saints such as Augustine and Thomas.  In this letter, Rev. King prophetically articulated the case for civil disobedience against unjust laws such as those upholding segregationist policies.

One of my life's regrets is not to have personally met nor even seen Martin Luther King, although--while traveling through Oklahoma with some seminarian classmates--with intent interest, I  did watch "live"  his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Washington Mall. 

I salute this wise Christian clergyman, and consider him as one of this country's greatest men.  Although he already had a good glimpse of the "mountain top," he got a better and lasting view when he entered eternal life forty years ago on April 4, 1968.


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2:09:43 AM EDT
[Information taken mostly from, Marta Wiegle, Brothers of Light, Brothers of Blood; The Penitentes of the Southwest, UNM Press, Albuqurque, NM, 1976, pp. 300, passim.]

During the lifetime of Padre Martinez, Taos and northern New Mexico in general was highly politicized without necessarily being polarized by partisan politics. Moradas then, as churches and lodges today, tended to be a convenient meeting place to communicate. “The majority of the Brotherhood in New Mexico was traditionally supposed to have been Republican….most of the Brothers east of the Sangre de Cristo Range being Democrats, and those to the west, Republicans.  However, no careful study has ever proved or disproved such popular notions.”
 
A Democratic partisan, “apparently the hermano mayor of Abiquiú,”  wrote to a Las Vegas printer at the beginning of the twentieth century   to express his desire for “a slate of Democratic candidates for county office to break the stronghold of Catronist Republicans.”  Mary Austin reports that in the 1920s, “a member of the Republican Committee estimated that practically ninety-five percent of the Spanish-speaking population of New Mexico had been at sometime in their lives members of the Penitentes.” 

San Miguel County succeeded Taos County as the “vigorous center of political activity, whether connected with the Penitentes or not.  Other strong Penitente counties were perhaps equally involved in Territorial politics and judicial process, but public concern about Brotherhood power seems to have shifted from Taos…by the beginning of the twentieth century.”  Also in San Miguel County, an older cofradía complained in early 1946 to civil authority about a younger cofradía usurping their name, and consequently causing confusion.  The older was called “La Fraternididad de Nuestro Padre Jesus de Nazareno del Condado de San Miguel, Territorio de Nuevo Mexico,” and the newly incorporated cofradía was called by the very similar name of “Concilio Original de Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, de Sheridan, Condado de San Miguel, Nuevo Mexico.” The tension may have been about more than nomenclature, but also about politics.  The former cofradía was “reputed to be solidly Republican, the newer Democratic.”  

It seems that the younger group was “anxious to acquire power within the Brotherhood and the county.  These allegations were never publicly substantiated, but the split between groups of Democrats and the traditionally Republican moradas apparently had precedent within the county…”  The Archbishop wisely suggested that a name change take place for both within a reasonable time.  The former would become “El Concilio del Centro de Nuestra Señora de Los Dolores,” and the latter “El Conciio del Centro de Sangre de Cristo.” 

Father Emile Barrat spoke of his Costilla parish and missions, in the county north of Taos and on the Colorado side of the border between New Mexico and Colorado that “used to belong to the political center of Taos.”  He went on to explain that politics is now explicitly excluded from all church-sponsored meetings.

[The blog, sadly,  did not reproduce the footnote page references to Marta Weigle's classic work on the Penitentes of the Southwest, Brothers of Light...]

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4:52:39 PM EDT
“Now is the time for all good men (people) to come to the aid of their party!” Democrats credit Thomas Jefferson as their founding spirit, and Republicans look to Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist ideals as one of their main patrons.  Both Founding Fathers are giants of this democracy, of this republic. The Federalist Party was no longer around in the mid nineteenth century when New Mexico became a Territory of the United States and Padre Martinez together with may others became citizens of the US. 

The 1877 Biography of Padre Martinez by Santiago Valdez states that he “embraced the Democratic or anti-slavery party, and as such was elected Senator of the first Senatorial District of Taos and Rio Arriba.” This “Democratic or anti-slavery” party existed in opposition to the Whigs.  However, within a few years that single Democratic-Republican Party would also disappear, but then re-emerge as the two separate major political parties with which today we are familiar. The “Democratic or anti-slavery party” of 1846-1851 was, then, not synonymous with today’s Democratic Party. 

The Federalist Party was disappearing, and—in an “era of good feeling” with its political rivals—the Whig party would replace it by 1815.  The Democratic Party began in opposition to the Federalists, and the principle of states’ rights was a key plank in their platform.  However, in its early years, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Democratic Party became known by the confusing name of Democratic-Republican Party.   Although this political party favored France in the wars between Brittan and France, its hyphenated name indicates that the core concepts defining the identity of political parties were fluctuating. One thing that the members of the Democratic-Republican Party were clear about was that they were against the Whigs, successors to the Federalists, who advocated a strong central government, a more relaxed interpretation of the Constitution, and a republic run by a more professional educated class.  By the 1860s, the Whigs would also fade away completely.

In the 1820s, the Democratic-Republican Party began to morph into what would eventually become two distinct political parties--the Democratic and Republican parties that we know today.  This process culminated in the mid-nineteenth century with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that came into existence in 1848, and the Republican Party that was conceived in 1850.  However,  it took some years for party identity and loyalty to develop.  In fact, by 1860, the Republican Party became the “anti-slavery” party in which Abraham Lincoln ran and won as its first presidential candidate.

Antonio José Martinez was born a citizen of Spain in an America that that was still part of the Kingdom of Spain.  During his young manhood, he lived through and embraced Mexican Independence and became a fervent Mexican nationalist, imbibing and promoting principles of freedom and democracy.  Over a period of years, and after a process of mature political thinking, he deliberately chose to become an American citizen on the occasion that General Stephen Watts Kearney invited him to do so in the late summer of 1846.  “General Kearny invited all the prominent men of the Territory to visit him at the capital, and Padre Martinez was tendered a special invitation…Padre Martinez, accompanied by his brothers…left for Santa Fe, [and] during this visit, all three were sworn in as American citizens.” [Santiago Valdez Manuscript, p. 111-320/88] 

General Kearny appointed Governor Donaciano Vigil in early 1847 to succeed assassinated Governor Charles Bent, and Vigil selected Padre Martinez to preside over a Convention held in Santa Fe in October 1847.  One of the principal tasks of this convention was to facilitate transition from a military government to one purely civil in character.   The U.S.-Mexican War was formally concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and a whole swath of land north of Mexico—including the vast territory of New Mexico-- became “the American Southwest.”   On October 12 of that year, Padre Martinez presided over the second General Convention in Santa Fe, and that assembly requested the U.S. Congress to abolish military rule and establish Civil Government in New Mexico.  It was the anniversary-day. two and a half centuries after the arrival of Columbus to the new world. 

In 1851, there was a third Convention of New Mexico, now a Territory of the United States that was no longer under Military Rule.  In preparation for elections, New Mexicans were choosing the political party to which they wanted to belong as citizens of the United States.  However, the choices were still largely limited to Democratic-Republican or Whigs.  Although the national Democratic Party and theRepublican Party were each in their infancy, neither party was quite formed in its present state nor yet very well known.

Some twenty years earlier, after 1830, the Democratic Party had become a coalition of farmers, city dwelling laborers, and Irish Catholics. The Cura de Taos might have been attracted to a political party that welcomed Irish Catholics, but he would not have favored unlawful expansion of settlers who squatted on land owned by him or anyone in his extended family, or other New Mexican long-time settlers. He also would have initially opposed the Democrats’ embrace of the War with Mexico, the expulsion of eastern American Indians, and the acquisition of vast amounts of new land in the West. However,  he would have been in deep sympathy with the Democratic Party’s opposition to anti-immigrant nativists who held strongly negative views about all foreigners, or native-born Catholics, Jews and Negroes.

The so-called “Democratic Party,” to which the biographer of Padre Martinez claims the Padre belonged, was more accurately the Democratic-Republican Party that identified itself in opposition to the Whigs.  The issue of slavery helped bring political identity into focus. Democrats and Whigs were divided on the issue of slavery.   Democrats in Congress, especially those of the so-called “solid south,” passed the hugely controversial pro-slavery Compromise of 1850, while the Territorial Government of New Mexico was taking shape.  Under the leadership of Padre Martinez, New Mexico insisted that it be admitted into the Union as a Free State.  Nevertheless, in state after state, the Democrats gained small but permanent advantages over the Whig Party that finally collapsed in 1852. Division over slavery and its nativist leanings against immigrants and “foreigners,” especially those of Jewish or Catholic heritage,  had fatally weakened  it.

Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois--the future debate-rival of Abraham Lincoln—pushed through the pro-slavery Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 that repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  According to the principle of “popular sovereignty,” the Act opened the Midwest territories to slavery.  In reaction to this, anti-slavery activists and individuals conceived the Republican Party in the early 1850's, and the first official Republican meeting took place in 1854.  The name "Republican" was chosen because it alluded to equality and reminded individuals of Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. They believed that government should grant western lands to settlers free of charge.

In 1856, the Republicans became a national party when John C. Fremont was nominated for President, and four years later, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to win the White House.  Against the backdrop of the slavery issue, a major re-alignment took place among voters and politicians, with new issues, new parties, and new rules. While the Democrats survived, many northern Democrats joined the newly established Republican Party.  Was Padre Martinez among them?  How about members of the Penitentes whom the Padre influenced so much in spiritual maters, and somewhat in political matters as well?

[Information taken mostly from <http://en.wikipedia.org/>.]


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7:50:30 PM EDT
Feeling Hopeful
Hearing Handel's Messiah
Just a few more hours and we can say/SING the "A" word.  I remember as a kid, Lent officially ended on Holy Saturday with the ringing of the church bell for the Angelus at noon.  My brothers and I would stop from yard work, jump up and down in a boyhood spirit of real joy,  yelling "Lent is OVER!" 

Don't know why all the fuss, since we were not into flagellation or anything really difficult--just normal '50s kind of Catholic things.  In fact, that morning already at 6:30 AM, we had already celebrated the "Resurrection Mass"!  Present in church for that long Latin liturgy was the pastor presiding, my two brothers and  I serving, and a very few other people including always Mrs. Hammond--an elderly lady who was the "Anna of the Temple."

We few were about all the "full active participation" there was from our parish in those days, and I'll bet our parish was on the high end of attendance for that Easter service on the day before.  The pastor sang the "Twelve Prophecies" that were the scripture readings which on this occasion--by exception--included some selections from the Hebrew Scriptures. Before each, Father Curran (later "Monsignor")would make a dedication of a particular reading to someone present, e.g. "This one is for Mrs. Hammond."  It all seems so long ago and far away, and so it was.  It certainly was the right move for P. Pius XII during the mid '50s to begin liturgical renovation, in anticipation of Vatican II, with the restoration of the Easter VIGIL!

However, my musings today are not mere nostalgia.  My heart today is full of hope.  It is not just that I am at a beautifully landscaped center where religious women are making their annual retreat.  It is not only that spring has sprung, and that I hear birds chirping joyfully, feel a gentle breez blowing, and the sun is shining in a cloudless sky on a warm day.  There is something else.

It feels life half a century ago to me at this moment--when all was right with the world, or so it felt in a secure home and school environment in which love did reign.  I remember my ordination to priesthood--forty-four years ago at the end of next month--and recall the joyful anticipation of fulfilling a ministry to which I felt called.  At the time we had a pope who did not give way to the dire predictions of the "prophets of doom" who surrounded him, but lifted our hearts with a call to prayer for "a new Pentecost in our times."  He convinced and challenged us to action, doing our part to help fulfill God's plan for the "renewal of the face of the earth"--  beginning with the church itself. 

We had a president who  set our collective eyes on the moon, and inspired "a new generation" to ask what they could do for their country, and to help people as a corps of volunteers for peace in poor countries throughout the world.

I feel something like that is in the air again.  Our young people are being stirred to critical consciousness and a sense of ecological responsibility to save the planet from the pollutions of corporate greed. The resurrection of Jesus Christ almost 2000 years ago was a real victory over darkness, evil, sin and death.  The grace of baptism invites and challenges us to be agents of change in a sinful world so that we may consecrate this fallen but redeemed world, and return every dimension of it to the Father. 

My intution tells me--a great sense of HOPE--that we are on the verge of what John Henry Cardinal Newman in the 19th century called a "Second Spring."  Our sagging world and disheartened spirits need it.  MAY THAT SECOND SPRING COME SOON, AND BEGIN NOW!

"This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it.!" ALLELUIA!


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7:57:58 PM EDT
Unassailable is the commitment of Padre Martinez to quality education in preparation for life.  It nurtures the process of liberation that takes the mind and spirit from darkness to light—very much a paschal journey.  He was assiduous for his own education since he was a small child.  After moving with his parents and younger brothers and sisters from Abiquiu to Taos when he was about eleven, he reviewed , on his own, what he had learned as a small child in school.  He deepened his formal education at the Tridentine seminary in Durango, in accord with the reforms mandated by the 16th century Ecumenical Council held in Trent, Italy.  In seminary, he won a royal scholarship (given by the King of Spain—just a few years before Mexican Independence), and excelled in philosophy and canon law.

In 1826, shortly after returning to his hometown of Taos as the priest in charge of Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, Padre Martinez established the elementary school for girls as well as boys.  Formal education for girls was still quite unusual at the time.  In 1833, he obtained from Bishop Zubiría, who was visiting the northern extremity of his Diocese of Durango, permission to prepare young men for priesthood.  He taught them Latin and various other subjects before sending them to study theology at the same seminary that he had attended.  He obtained his printing press by 1835, and published a number of devotional and educational materials useful to his students.  Sixteen men from his seminary were ordained to the priesthood.

After the American occupation in the late summer of 1846, Padre Martinez announced to his seminary students that they would now focus on the study of civil law.  He learned, taught and encouraged the study of English.  He himself was a canon lawyer well versed in church law, and also a self-taught civil lawyer licensed by the government.  He was conversant with the civil law of Spain, Mexico, and was learning the civil law of the United States. Pdre Martinez, besides educating the first generation of native priests for New Mexico, also educated the first generation of lawyers and politicians of the U.S. Territory of New Mexico.

The above contemporary article echoes this concern for education and law.  It follows in larger type :

                                    THE STAMP OF HISTORY
                                                        by
                                           Svetlana Shkolnikova

SEVEN YEARS BEFORE the monumental Brown v. Board decision tore down the "separe but equal" education system, a little girl of Mexican heritage won the right to attend White schools in California. 

It's a relatively unknown piece of history, but the case that promoted California's school desegregation, paved the way for success in Little Rock and other desegregation battles.  And now, 60 years later, the first ruling has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a commemorative stamp.

"TEACHING MENDEZ V. WESTMINSTER IS FAITHFUL TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS STORY.  IT SHOWS THAT CIVIL RIGHTS WAS NOT JUST A BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE."--Adam Wemmer, California History Teacher

In 1947, Sylvia Mendez was one of several Mexican students in Orange County, California, whose parents sued four school districts for dening their children the right to attend designated "White" schools in the area.  The case was fought all the way to the Supreme Court, whose decision confirmed the words of a federal district judge ruling on the case: "A paramount requisite in the American system of public eduction is social equality."







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2:15:35 PM EDT
INTRODUCTION
Padre Martinez, on his own behalf and on behalf of ten other citizens of Taos and its environs in the early spring of 1852 wrote this letter to Governor James S. Calhoun, asking for his mediation  in resolving land conflicts with  American  squatters on their common grazing pastures.

This Calhoun is not to be confused with contemporary and prominent politician from South Carolina John C. Calhoun.  James Calhoun was was also from the South, but from Gerogia.  He was in the state legislature of Georgia in 1830, and, beginning in 1838, served a two year term as mayor of Columbus, Georgia.  He was in the U.S.-MEXICAN War, and later appointed as NM Secretary of Indian Affairs.  In 1850, when he was 47, President Millard Filmore appointed him as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico.  Because of illness, he served in that post for only two years, and by late spring 1852, within a short time after Padre Martinez and the ten others sent to the governor the letter below, Governor Calhoun retired from politics because of ill health, and returned to his home in Georgia.  Colonel E.V. Sumner succeded him in the interim before Governor Lane took over.

Governor James S. Calhoun had high  regard  for  Padre  Martinez.  Under  his Governor's watch,  New Mexico became of age  as  a Territory  of  the  United  States.   In his letter of April 20, 1851 to Padre Martinez, Gov. Calhoun asked him to join his friend and confidant George Gould in selecting five Senators  for  NM  and  five  Representatives to serve in the House of Representatives for the  County of  Taos.  Calhoun recognized Martinez as "intelligent...wise...learned...of broad experience..." and therefore well qualified for the task.  The final paragraph of that letter [quoted in the 1877 Valdez Biography] seems to be more than politics as usual,  and reflects the Governor's warm relationship with the priest of Taos:

"I ask all of this from you in the name of the people.  I will also say that I would be very glad if I can be of any service to you and to your friends.  I insist on making my house your headquarters during your stay in Santa Fe.  Please have the kindness of writing to me as often as you may deem convenient."

Within a year, Padre Martinez--in this letter that follows---would test the sincerity of those sentiments.  However, because of his illness, Governor Calhoun was not able to follow through in a way that would have pleased Padre Martinez and his fellow citizens of Taos. 

The ten signatories who joined Padre Martinez in signing the letter were mostly related to him.  Vicente Martinez, well versed in these matters, informs me of the following:

a. José María Martínez – Taos Probate Judge who signed the “dote,” [i.e. the generous dowry of property (including a part of his own house) that Padre Martinez left for his daugher María de la Luz Romero, married to another signer, José Manuel Martínez].

b. Ignacio Valdez – The man who raised Santiago Valdez [putative son of the Padre, and author of his 1877 biography manuscript found at Huntington Library near  L.A.].

c. Pascual Martínez - The Padre’s [favorite and youngest] brother.

d. Pedro Sánchez – Former Taos Probate Judge and Padre Martinez' nephew-in-law, married in 1858 to Pascual's daughter who was the Padre's favorite niece. [Sanchez wrote his Memorias about the Padre that were published in 1901].

Pedo Sanchez signed “Ad Vicula” as his middle name.  It refers to a minor basilica in Rome called St. Peter in Chains.  Peter was imprisoned  both  in  Jerusalem and  later a couple of times in  Rome (Acts 5: 18 and 12: 6 & 7).  According to a pious legend, the chains from his Jerusalem imprisonment were brought to Rome, and put in the same reliquary with Peter's chains in Rome.  When that happened, they fused.  A fresco painted in 1706 captures that "miracle" of the fusion of the chains.  The basilica is supposed to have been built over an Imperial villa about the year 440, and was renovated in 1875.  The feast day of the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains used to be August 1, maybe birthday of Pedro Sanchez.

e. José Manuel Martínez – Husband of María de la Luz Romero [daughter of the Padre, and he presided at their wedding on May 31, 1851--a few weeks before Apostolic Vicar Lamy came to Santa  Fe].

The dowry that María de La Luz Romero received from Padre Martinez upon her marriage to José Manuel Martínez insured that she was well provided for, and it spoke of a loving father’s special love for his daughter.

Antonió José Martinez had two prior daughters to whom he had also given the name María de La Luz, but both had died.  The first born of 20-year old Antonio José was a legitimate daughter born to his young wife from Abiquiu whose own name was María de La Luz, and her surname was Martín Serrano--a variation of Antonio José's family name.  This baby daughter was named María de La Luz after her mother, but this daughter died at the tender age of 12. 

Theodora Romero bore a daughter from Padre Martinez who was also named María de La Luz, but this child died in infancy.  Theodra bore Padre Martinez a third daughter named María de La Luz, and providentially this one lived to be married and beyond.  It is to her that Padre Martinez is so generous in the dowry given.

In the dowry that Padre Martinez bestowed to María de La Luz Romero for her wedding,  he gve a house 18 x 28 varas (a vara is 3” shy of a yard) contiguous to his own home at the Taos Plaza. They both shared a common courtyard, a spacious back yard, and she had a land-moat of 30 varas surrounding her house furnished with quality furniture and a set of silver cutlery.

In addition, Padre Martinez bestowed to María de La Luz a large room of 16 varas at his other house at Rancho of La Purísima  Concepción in El Prado.  Moreover, he gave her one hundred square varas surrounding that land,--almost the size of a football field.  [Summary of findings in unpublished translation of Dowry of María de La Luz Romero by Vicente Martinez.]


f. Santiago de Jesús Valdez - A son of Padre Martinez.
______
Taos
March 12, 1852

The Honorable James S. Calhoun
Governor, Territory of New Mexico

My Dear Sir:
 
I am drafting again the letter that eleven of us landowners and citizens of Taos signed in which we requested the right to continue to use for grazing parcels from our ranches that without dispute we have always enjoyed in common.   We are enduring “repulsions,” as one document mentioned, and we will make the most of our request so that within those boundaries that we set we can and will be able to freely sustain grazing lands and prevent others from taking it away for themselves.

We have the disposition to bring this matter to the appropriate levels of government whenever it determines the value of the properties, or decides to purchase them, paying whatever price is assigned to the contiguous piece of [grazing/pasturing] land that will be worth more than those lands that remain excluded from such uses.  The [newly purchased] lands will then be subject to the land owners.

I hope--and so do the undersigned associates who sign this letter--that in response to its indicated objectives,  the liberality of Your Excellency will serve to decree affirmatively on our behalf.

I wish to inquire about the state of Your Excellency's health, since it is said that you have been somewhat ill.  I wish you the best of health and the full recovery that my friendly affection desires. 

Most fondly, your servant who attentively kisses your hand,
 
Antonio Jose Martinez


AJM-52Mar12-Land-2ndTry

Taos
March 12, 1852

His Excellency, Don James S. Calhoun
Governor of this Territory of New Mexico

We residents of Taos County present ourselves before Your Excellency in proper form, since the poor have the right to a forum in which to represent and state their necessities.  We find ourselves in the need to graze our livestock, insofar as we have been repelled from various points by Americans squatting on our land, and we have come to the conclusion that that they intend to occupy it and take over certain grounds so they may graze [their own livestock] behind our homes on land that we own in the area of Taos, above and within the following boundaries:

    On the south, the complete flow of the Rio de Coyote,
    On the east, the line of Don Manuel Alvarez about [above?] Ocaté,
    On the west, the Little House of Stones, and
    On the north, the Lakes of Moreno.

These are for the summer months, but in the months ofwinter, it is necessary to move [the animals] away from the high country.   Those insufferable difficulties of the cold and snow make it impossible for anyone to work in the haciendas of the high mountains.

We would like to talk about a moderate region, and we also hope to occupy and enjoy the meadows that are to the sides of the Rio del Coyote, away from one place that they call Gua[da]lupitas,  The borders are as follows:

    On the east, with the little hills of the Santa Claras [Wagon Mound],
    On the west, El Valle del Turquillo whose surrounding hills embrace the                        mountains of Taos,
    On the south, the place called the Cave of the Fishermen, and
    On the north, with the regions of Ocaté that was a gift to Don Manuel Alvarez.

The undersigned petitioners place this concern before Your Excellency for those reasons set forth, and in this way they attempt to use such lands for grazing—because it is the only thing it is good for.  We are subject to the conditions that the government may impose whenever  it may dispose of those lands. 

So that this petition be certified, this will be decreed.
Therefore, we beg Your Excellency, to give careful consideration to our request, and I have good hope that you will accede to it. We swear in good faith, and ______ whatever  may be necessary [to accomplish it?].

Antonio Jose Martinez
Cristobal Sanches
Juan de Jesus Mares
Jose Maria Martinez
Jose Manuel Martines
Pedro Ad Vincula Sanchez
Ignacio Valdez
Juan Manuel Lucero
Simon Lino Trujillo
Pascual Martinez
Santiago de J. Valdes




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2:56:47 AM EDT
LAST WEDDING IN NM UNDER DIOCESE OF DURANGO
This wedding is significant for a few reasons.  It is one of the final juridical acts in the old Diocese of Durango--to which New Mexico belonged for so long--just before it was subsumed as part of the new Vicariate Apostolic of Santa Fe, later to become the Diocese of Santa Fe.  Within a cople of weeks, the new Vicar Apostolic Jean Baptiste Lamy would be arriving in Santa Fe to take over his new postion as leader of the local church in New Mexico.

FATHER OF THE BRIDE
A second very interesting twist in this marriage, in addition to its liminal character, is the very unusual fact that the father of the bride is also the priest, Padre Martinez,  presiding over the Catholic wedding ceremony. As a very young man, before seminary and priesthood, Antonio José Martínez was married to his sweetheart by the name of María de La Luz who also from Abiquiu, but she died in giving birth to their daughter who was named after her mother.  Young María de La Luz herself tragically died at the age of 12.  It seems that Antonio José Martínez all of his life kept a predeliction for the name María de la Luz, perhaps in memory of his young wife and their  daughter.

It is  documented that  Padre  Martinez illictly  sired other children  after he  became a priest, and among them was another María de La Luz whose mother was Teodora Romero. However, she died as an infant.  Then the same parents had another baby girl to whom they gave the same name.  This is the daughter at whose wedding Padre Martinez presided in 1851.

DISPENSATIONS REQUIRED
A third situation that merits our attention, and provides a window to Catholic marriage law is the necessity of "dispensations" from established church law.  First cousins are never supposed to be married, and only by special dispensations can second cousins be married.  This bride and groom are second cousins.

VICAR ORTIZ GRANTS DISPENSATION
Vicar Ortiz granted the dispensation from consanguinity on May 27 for the Martines-Romero wedding scheduled to take place on May 31, 1851.  The dispensation from the diriment impediment of second degree of consanguinity was necessary for the validity of the marriage, and it should have been in hand before the marriage ceremony. For whatever reason, that dispensation was being granted rather late; perhaps it was requested later than it should have been.  In any case, that three-day window did not leave much time for the dispensation to actually arrive on time, although the journey from Santa Fe could have been made in a day. This note is to advise that the dispensation was given ON TIME, i.e. before the marriage, although it did not arrive until after the ceremony. 

This would have been the last,  or at least  one the  last,  dispensations that Vicar Ortiz would issue since--with the arrival of the new Vicar Apostolic and his Vicar General Joseph Prospectus Machebeuf--his services as Vicar for the Bisop of Durango would no longer be needed.  He was now about to become the EX-Vicar Juan Felipe Ortiz, although remain Pastor of La Parroquia in Santa Fe.

The second part of the notation is signed by Padre Martinez indicating that he accomplished the formalities of marriage preparations in a timely and canonically correct manner.  This has some relevance insofar as some padres later made allegations that Father Machebeuf sometimes did not follow canonical procedure in regards to marriage dispensations.

Besides the dispensation from the impediment of consanguinity, there was also a dispensation from banns that today are routinely not even announced.  It used to be required that “Banns of Marriage,” i.e., that Fulano would be marrying
Mingana, would be announced three times at consecutive Masses on Sundays or Holy Days.  The idea was to ascertain FREDOM to marry as well as lack of impediments.  A dispensation from announcing the banns of marriage might be given when it was judged better not to announce the banns for some pastoral reason.  One reason might be that the wedding would be taking place sooner than originally anticipated, or there was not sufficient time.  Two examples of "lack of time" might be the groom was leaving soon for military duty, or the bride-to-be was about to give birth.  In any case, the dispensation was supposed to be given not by the pastor, but by higher authority in the name of the bishop.

PADRE MONTANO BRINGS DISPENSATION
Dispensation from Impediment of Consanguinity – May 27, 1851

This notation in the Marriage Register is in two parts.  Padre Montano arrived at the Taos Pueblo from Santa Fe shortly after the wedding, and stayed in the priest's quarters reservedthere.  Meanwhile Padre Martinez left to Santa Fe on pressing business.  Padre Montaño took the place of Padre Martinez while he was away, and left a note together with the Dispensation obtained.  Padre Martinez--upon his return from Santa Fe--included in the parish Marriage Registry both Padre Montano's note and confirmation that the dispensation was granted on time.

Padre Montaños's Note and Dispensation:
"Taking the pastor's place during his absence, I--the priest Vicente Saturnino Montaño--arrived at this parish of San Geronimo de Taos on June 9, 1851 A.D., bringing with me the arrangement of a matrimonial DISPENSATION GRANTED in favor of José Manuel Martins and María de La Luz Romero.  Vicar Don Juan Felipe Ortiz granted it in Santa Fe on the 27th of this last month of May.  The Act dispensed the couple contracting marriage from  the CANONICAL IMPEDIMENT of a relationship of the SECOND DEGREE OF CONSANGUINITY in the TRANSVERSAL LINE."

PADRE MARTINEZ ON TO BUSINESS IN SANTA FE

Two important events were about to take place in Santa Fe, and Padre Martinez was involved in both: the arrival of the new Vicar Apostolic from Ohio, and the F