Padre Antonio José Martinez, Cura de Taos

ROMERO BROTHERS AT UNVEILING

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:57:37 GMT

Two years ago--July 16, 2008, the life-sized bronze memorial of Padre Martinez was unveiled in the center of the Taos Plaza. Among those present were the three Romero brothers all born in Taos between 1934 and 1938. Left to right: Air force Retired Airforce Major J. Tobias Romero (Jr.), Rev. Juan Romero, and Rev. C. Gilbert Romero, Ph. D. Toby lives in Tucson, and recently organized a national reunion of his fellow members of the Strategic Air Command. Fr. Gil, with a doctorate in Sacred Scripture from Princeton, was recognized in June by his peers as a pioneer of AHCTUS (Academy of Hispanic Catholic Theologians of the United States), and Fr. Juan recently made a presentation in Taos to the Hispanic Genealogical Society of Southern California on the New Mexico - California Migrations during the latter half of the nineteenth century. We brothers came with mom and dad to Los Angeles a century later, in 1943.

SURGEON, SHOEMAKER, SACRISTAN, SANTERO-SCOUNDREL/SAINT?

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:19:32 GMT

Upon first arriving at Albuquerque on January 16, I stayed at Immaculate Conception church in downtown Albuquerque. I had a delightful and fraternal visit with both Jesuit Fathers Edmundo Rodriguez and Tom Steele! I knew Father Rodriguez, S.J. from San Antonio, Texas since the early ‘70s, and I consider him as one of my principal mentors. Father “Mundo” was the "spiritual godfather" of the Mexican American priests organization PADRES for whom I served as Executive Director until the end of 1975.

I had dinner with Father Steele with whom I am collaborating on a publication of primary source materials on Padre Martinez, and we expect the University of New Mexico Press to publish it by 2009Father Steele is an emminent scholar of New Mexican History and Art, having authored several books on both subjects. One of his books is on SANTOS, and by extension on santeros who make the santos.

I was surprised and intrigued by the fact that Father Steele had written, but not yet published, a twenty-page essay on Francisco Xavier Romero. Father Steele proposes him as "A Hitherto-Unknown Santero," and makes the case that he is to be identified with "Franciscan B" on the lists of some New Mexican art catalogues. FXR is an important ancestor on my dad’s side, one whom my Uncle Tom has well researched. Tom was dad's brother, his junior by seven years, and Father Steele quotes some of Uncle Tom's works on FXR that he donated to the NM State Archives.

The auto license plate of Uncle Tom began with FXR. My email address is composed of my first name, initial of last name, PLUS the Roman numeral VI since I am the 6th Juan Romero in a line of descendants from Francisco Xavier. He was one of the soldiers who accompanied Don Diego de Vargas in the 1693 "reconquista" of New Mexico after the Spanish Colony's thirteen-year exile in El Paso. Occasioned by the 1680 Indian Rebellion. some exiles of the NM Spanish colony traveled further south. FXR was one of the first settlers of Santa Cruz de La Cañada, east of present-day Española.

Uncle Tom was a boyhood sheepherder, a WWII Army Air Corps turret-ball gunner decorated with the Distingished Flying Cross for his twenty-five Missions over Germany, and a professor of Spanish on every level until his retirement. Upon his retirement, his children challenged him to translate the family heirloom--a water-stained sheaf of vellum documents that Francisco Xavier Romero handed down in the family.

He did it! A motivation even stronger than the challenge of his grown children was what Uncle Tom took as a taunt from guest--speaker Fray Angelico Chavez made to him when--on the G.I. Bill -- he was a young university student working for his Masters degree in Spanish at Las Cruces. When Uncle Tom asked Fray Angelico about Francisco Xavier Romero, the Franciscan dean of New Mexico historians replied curtly--to hear Tom tell it--"You best forget about him!" Tom did not. ¡Que en paz descanse! He is buried in Taos.

It seems that FXR was quite expert in the use of a SCALPEL, and that skill "cut across" or perhaps through many occupations: surgeon (including blood-letting/phlebotomy, and barbering); shoemaker--cutting hides for teguas/moccasins); and santero--cutting hides by the vara (about 3” less than a yard) upon which holy pictures might be painted. For the sake of alliteration, we could add sacristan, scoundrel-sinner and saint (?) to the list of his characterists.

There were allegations casting a shadow over the reputation of Fransisco Xavier--one for the theft of an ox, and the other of molestation of a young man. Trials and exonerations concluded that, in the first case, the animal was said to be "dead and wolf-eaten," (the ox hide sure came in handy, though). In the second case, a judge found FXR--in the words of Fr. Steele's abbreviated version, "Innocent, but don't do it again."

Francisco Xavier Romero had compiled a book of documents testifyng to his surgical skills and good reputation. He certainly was well-regarded by the parishioners of San Francisco Xavier parish, AKA San Felipe de Neri in Old Town Albuquerque at the corner of ROMERO and Church Streets. It was was originally called Francisco Xavier, but was later re-named "San Felipe de Neri." Francisco Xavier had stopped there on his way to "exile" in El Paso, but the people prevailed upon the governor to pardon his sentence so that he could continue to serve there as their surgeon-shoemaker as well as sacristan. FXR donated many religious artifacts both to the church of San Xavier [AKA San Felipe] in Albuquerque, and to the church of Santa Cruz de La Cañada between modern-day Española and Cimayó.

God alone is judge to what extent Francisco Xavier was a scoundrel- sinner or pious man-saint. I’m confident that he had within him--as do we all-- some of each of those categories.

Father Thomas J. Steele, S.J makes the case that Francisco Xavier Romero was an unknown, yet very skillful santero. He penned "A Hitherto-Unknown Santero" in 1993, revised it in2001, and has submitted it for evenutal publication to Tom Chavez (nephew of Fray Angelico Chavez and formerly with the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, and then with the NM Cultural Center in Albuquerque.

NM-CA CONNECTION: GSHA-SC Meeting in Taos June 27-29

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:40:13 GMT

The Genealogical Society of Hispanic America-Southern California is holding its annual meeting June 27-29 in Taos at the Sagebrush Inn. I am one of the speakers, and will be making a presentation on the New Mexico-California Connection during the decade of 1838 to 1848. For further information, contact Cathy Archuleta of Pueblo, Colorado at <carchuleta@secwin.com>. Here are a few highlights:

Before the 1830s, Julian Chavez as a young man of 20 came from Abiquiu and settled in Los Angeles. By the time he was 30, he was the Vice Mayor of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Dodgers in 1958 built their stadium near what used to be his residence in Chavez Ravine named after him, and Georgia O'Keefe a few years later came to live in his Abiquiu house.

Padre Martinez was born in Abiquiu in 1793. Around 1824, he returned there as a young priest of Santo Tomas parish where he had been baptized. Julian was of an age to be his altar server, although I am not sure whether or not he was.

About this time, John Rowland came to Taos on the Santa Fe Trail. He was related to William Workman with whom he had common roots in England, and they became business partners in Taos. In 1825, Rowland married Taoseña Encarnación Martinez, most likely a relative of the Padre who helped arrange their marriage.

Santiago Martinez, related to Encarnación Martinez de Rowland, was another Abiqueño who migrated from Abiquiu to settle in the San Bernardino-Riverside area, commonly called the "Inland Empire" of southern California. He was the first of European stock to do so. Santiago came in 1838 with his young (Archuleta) wife and newly born child to settle just northeast of Colton, and in the next decade, a major colonization of California by New Mexicans took place. Over 150 families settled in the Agua Mansa area just south of Colton, and during that time it became the largest population center between Santa Fe and Los Angeles.

Texas in 1840 was trying to enlarge its territory by expanding its border east to the Rio Grande. John Rowland and William Workman, were Mexican citizens because of their marriages to Taoseñas, nevertheless they declared their sympathy with the Texans. Governor Armijo denounced them, and they decided to flee New Mexico and go to California where Encarnación (through Santiago) had been engaged in the trade of New Mexican blankets for California horses and mules.

Genizro Lorenzo Trujillo of Abiquiu led their treks to California on the so-called "Spanish Trail," an extension of El Camino Real and the Santa Fe Trails. The main items of trade were NM blankets for CA mules and horses. Some interesting folks also came with Rowland and Workman from New Mexico to California. Among them were B.D. Wilson of Tennessee for whom Mt. Wilson is named; Isaac Givens, an engineer who wrote a journal (housed at UC Berkeley) of his journey, and Episcopal Bishop James Mead.

Caravan guide Lorenzo Trujillo settled with the many other New Mexicans at San Salvador in the Agua Mansa area, and Trujillo Plaza was named after him. This small settlement was the beginning of the Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino that is now the tenth largest in the United States.

Eighteen years after his marriage to Encarnación Martínez, John Rowland went to California, and the following year in 1841 returned to Taos to bring his wife and large family with him. Padre Martinez wrote a LETTER OF TRANSIT for John Rowland and his family, and that letter helped him establish himself in California and eventually become eligible to own property. Rowland Heights was just a part of the La Puente Land Grant that stretched from parts of Monrovia and Covina to Whittier, and it included what is now Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, La Puente, Industry and Walnut. William Workman and John Rowland continued their partnership in California, and came to share the La Puente Land Grant.

By 1850, Mormons settled in the San Bernardino-Riverside area surrounding Colton, and they left a large imprint on its land and culture before Bringham Young recalled them back to Utah. A different era had begun.

FATHERS' DAY - Tim Russert: RIP!

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:48:11 GMT

I admire and appreciate Tim Russert of Meet the Press. Although he has so recently died, I speak in the present tense because my admiration and appreciation of this man continues. Since Sunday morning Mass schedule prevented me from seeing Meet the Press "live," I was neveertheless quite familiar with the program and with him from news clips and other sources. I esspecially appreciate his openly professing his Catholic faith in an endearing manner. He proudly affirmed his Catholic grade school and Jesuit high school education, and the specific teachers who influenced his life. On this Fathers' Day, I am especially moved by his "piety," the virtue that bespeaks family loyalty and love for one's father. He articulated it in Big Russ and Me that I have now put on my reading list.

I sincerely commend to you the video tributes to him on MSNBC.com:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25162101#25159073

M.L. King - REMAINING AWAKE THROUGH A GREAT REVOLUTION

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:33:48 GMT

[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 Muñoz whom 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....

Rev. M.L. King - Sermon [Similarities Vietnam War - Iraq War]

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:27:31 GMT

[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.

Martin Luther King - April 4, 1968: RIP Forty Years Later

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:07:58 GMT

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.

Benjamin Read's Mother: Ignacia Cano; His Father: Descendant of Ben Franklin?

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:09:40 GMT

[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

PADRE MARTINEZ and POLITICAL PARTIES

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:52:39 GMT

“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/>.]

PENITENTES AND POLITICS

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:09:43 GMT

[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...]