COMPLETE TABLE of CONTENTS to be ADDED

01_1780-1853_Moreno_Alemany

[01] A Glance Backward

Surely it is a marvel, in the history of the modern world, that the relatively small nation of Spain, most of whose blood and treasure were already committed to the European theater, could embark upon and actually succeed, with a handful of men, in taking possession of the Caribbean archipelago and, from that base, to diffuse Ibernian religion, culture, law and language to more than half the population of the two American continents.

In the overall Spanish policy of converting, civilizing and exploiting the Indians, no single priority outranked that of Christianizing the native races. The colonizers felt that the New World’s inhabitants could become desirable and integrated subjects only through acceptance of the discipline which religion imparts to civilized life. For that reason, wherever the Spanish conqueror or adventurer penetrated, there also penetrated the servant of God.¹

A favorite retort to charges, voiced as recently as the 1960 presidential campaign, about the alleged “foreign” character of Catholicism, is the gentle, but persuasive reminder that, in California and elsewhere, “the altar is older than the hearth.” ² The Church’s liturgy was first enacted at San Diego, in 1542, only a short half-century after the initial voyage by Genoa’s “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.”

The history of California, as well as all the Spanish colonies, can hardly be told, and surely not understood, apart from its ecclesiastical context.The interlocking directorate of church and state, welded in place by the Patronato Real de las Indias, forged a long, if not always compatible marriage between things human and affairs divine.

Paradoxically, it was the disastrous failure of the Jesuit missionary [^p.1] enterprise, in Florida, together with the subsequent transfer of the Society’s activities to Mexico, in 1572, that foreshadowed the first serious attempts to colonize the Californias. Though visitations to that “thorny heap of stones and the pathless, waterless rock, rising between two oceans³” are chronicled, in 1535, effective penetration of peninsular California can be reckoned only with the foundation of Nuestra Señora de Loreto, in 1697. The entire program fοr that treacherously dangerous endeavor, mapped out and financed exclusively by the Jesuits, was one of the spiritual orientation. Indians were invited and encouraged to learn about “the Catholic religion, the Spanish language, and the rudiments of the white man’s way of life.”⁴

Despite a few isolated outbursts of human opposition and the natural obstacles of plagues, pests and epidemics, the fifty-nine “Black Robes” who toiled in Baja California inaugurated a chain of eighteen missions, extending from Cape San Lucas at the southern-most tip of the peninsula, to within 300 miles of the present international boundary. By imparting a knowledge of God and diffusing a familiarity with such manual arts aS cultivating the 50.11 and raising livestock, the Jesuits managed to put solidly in place the cornerstone of a viable civilization in the relatively short period of their incumbency. Hubert Howe Bancroft, no lover of anything Catholic, believed that “had the Jesuits been left alone, it is doubtful whether the Spanish American provinces would have revolted so soon, fοr they were devoted servants of the crown, and had great influence with all classes.” ⁵

For reasons still open to further interpretation by historians, the government replaced the Society of Jesus, in 1767, with Franciscan missionaries from the the Apostolic College of San Fernando, near Mexico City. Providentially chosen to supervise and coordinate the new priestly contingency was Fray Junípero Serra, a Mallorcan, who had previously labored in the Sierra Gorda region of Mexico.

Some few months after assuming their pastoral duties on the peninsula, the friars learned of the government’s plans to push the Spanish frontier further northward. Since the time of Sebastiάn Vizcaino, missionaries had hoped to see permanent foundations in such distant places as San Diego and Monterey. When Madrid officials finally concluded that occupation of Alta California was no longer a matter of strategic military indifference, “the passion of the Church gladly allied itself with the purpose of the State.”⁶

The long-contemplated colonization-thrust was formally launched, in 1769, by Gaspiir de Portolii, who was to oversee the expedition of extending “religion among the pagans who live to the north.” ^{7  [p.2]} If Spanish troops were the key whereby the royal court manifested its concern for California, the missionaries were the masterkey. No single friar more adequately personified the characteristics associated with that monumental challenge than Fray Junipero Serra. Willingly and eagerly, he and his confreres volunteered for the thankless, dangerous and yet pivotal role of transforming and elevating a whole race from the level of a stone age existence.

In the course of the subsequent seventy-nine years, Serra and his 142 collaborators expended 2,269 man-years, each averaging sixteen years of service, to bring into the Christian fold and the ambit of Hispanic civilization nearly 100,000 aborigines. This they did while attending to the spiritual needs of the conquering Spaniards and Mexicans in the presidios, pueblos and ranαchos.⁸

The overall missionary achievement was, in certain respects, nothing less than colossal. Agriculture, pastoralism, horticulture and gardening were among the major trades introduced and developed, as was a modicum of foreign exchange. The Franciscans “brought to Alta California a new set of economic activities. They created a new California. And though the mission structure disappeared with secularization, the land it had transformed continued to bear its marks.”⁹

Though their primary function was spiritual, the missions performed the parallel service of raising the Indians to a standard of European civilization. To acquit themselves of that duty, the missions became massive industrial schools, their spinning and weaving rooms, their carpenter and blacksmith shops, their tanneries, winepresses, orchards, fields and irrigation ditches became part of everyday life.

Their religious, moral, social and industrial accomplishments explain how California’s mission complex could challenge the result of any other system of control for dependent people developed in the field of modern colonizatíon.¹⁰ Indeed, they “were such as to justify the plans of the wise statesmen who hitherto devised it, and to gladden the hearts of the pious men who devoted their lives to its execution.”¹¹

Whether they be viewed as monuments to the achievements of an adventurous and heroic group of friars, outposts of Christianity upon a treacherous frontier or interesting examples of architectural adaptation, the missions, known at the height of their prosperity, remain mute monitors of all that is best in California.

It has been suggested that a bystander break off a piece from one of the century-old adobe walls:

Crumble it to dust between your thoughtless fingers. Then place [^p.3] this dust in the open palm of your hand and hold it out so that the wind from the sea will blow it away forever. Only the dust of a crumbling adobe brick from a crumbling Mission wall, you say with an idle shrug. Yes, but a trifle more. The dust you held so carelessly in your open hand was the dust of an empire, if you had only understood—the glory of an ancient, heroic race. And the wind which blew it so utterly away? Ah, that was the wind which men call time.¹²

NOTES TO THE TEXT

¹Charles H. Robinson, “The Early Catholic Missions of California,” Catholic World, XXXII (October 1880), III.

²Jïhn Gilmary Shea as quoted in Francis J. Weber, “The Altar Older Than Hearth,” The Tidings, March 31, 1967.

³Ursula Schaefer, “Father Baegert and His Nachrichten,” Mid-America, XX (July 1938), 155.

⁴Jïhn W. Caughey, California (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1964), P. 72.

⁵Histosy of Mexico (San Francisco, 1882), III, 437.

⁶Carïline Stevens Walter, “The Early California Missions,” Frank Leslie’s Monthly nv. (December, 1890), 745.

⁷1aynard J. Geiger, O. F. M., “Instructions Concerning the Occupation of California 1769,” Southern California Quarterly, ×LÍÉÉ (June 1965), 211. ⁸Maynard J. Geiger, O. F. M., Franciscan licsionaries in Hispanic California, 17691848 (San Marino, Calif. 1969), ì. x.

°R. Louis Gentilcore, “Missions and Mission Lands of Alta California,” Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers, LI (March 1961), 72.

¹⁰Herbert Ingram Priestly, Coming of the White Man (New York, 1929), _p. 127. ¹¹John W. Dwinelle, The Colonial History of the City of San Francisco (San Francisco, 1863), ì. 44.

¹²Rïbert Glass Cleland quoted by Lawrence Clark Powell, “California Classics Reread,” Westways, LXI (April 1969), 52. ^*[p.4]

[2] New Era for California’s Church

Secularization, or the achievement of total local autonomy, always was and is the goal of every missionary endeavor. It was only the extremely slow assimilation of the California natives into the overall civilization program, that accounted for elongating the timetable in California. The unmistakable shadows of “forced” secularization became evident, however, in the early 1830s. The movement received an added impetus from the intense nationalism that engulfed Mexico in the years immediately after its independence. While earlier Spanish overtures toward secularization had been generally ignored in California, the concept was a logical adjunct to the philosophical attitude of the new government and the often expressed intentions of its leaders for identifying with calls for self-determination.

Governor Jose Figueroa sounded out the leader or Comisario Prefecto of the Zacatecan friars in the area, Fray Francisco Garcia Diego and his Fernandino counterpart, Fray Narciso Duran, several times about the thorny question of secularization as it was to be applied in the Californias. Garcia Diego replied that only two of the missions in his district were “viable” and their facilities were needed “to complement the needs of the others.” Garcia Diego recalled for the governor that the two foundations under question had already been extended to the breaking-point in attempts to meet the needs of the presidios at San Francisco and Monterey.¹ The relatively small populace was an additional reason for the friar’s belief that the whole question of secularization in the California missions should be postponed.

Among Garcia Diego’s most annoying problems were the brazen ^[p.5] activities of such men as Guadalupe Vallejo, who repeatedly accosted the missionaries with preposterous demands, most of which were realistically beyond the realm of good sense.² It was Vallejo, for example, who accused Jοsé Mercado of Mission San Rafael with provoking an attack on a band of friendly natives, in the course of which several lives were lost. Garcia Diego, a firm believer in swift justice, suspended Mercado until an investigation could be conducted by two deputized notaries. Fourteen witnesses were interrogated, all of whom agreed that Mercado was totally innocent fοr the “disgraceful deaths occurring in the vicinity of the mis-sion.”³ As soon as he received their verdict, the prefect restored the priest to his San Rafael pastorate.

In the summer of 1833, the two Franciscan superiors were formally asked which of the missions could be secularized in accord with legislation enacted by the Cort€s General on September 13, 1813. That law called fοr substituting secular priests fοr religious, and handing over all property titles to the natives,

Garcia Diego answered that, while only San Francisco Solano lacked the ten years specified for autonomy, he felt that it was an inopportune time for implementing the legislation. He pointed out hοw the enormous distances from the local scene made it impossible for the Congressional delegates to properly understand the real spiritual and material needs of the peoples in question.

Lacking proper supervision, Garcia Diego doubted whether the natives could even continue to exist, much less become useful and productive members of Hispanic society. Reminding the governor that the secularization decrees hadn’t been promulgated in the chronologically older missions of the Tarahumaras and Sonora, Fray Francisco Garcia Diego also wondered hοw the Diocese of Sonora, already desperately pressed for clerical personnel, could provide priestly ministrations to the widely scattered California populace.⁴

Meanwhile, the restless Mexican Congress, bowing to the proposals of such men as Juan Bandini, passed legislation, on August 17, directing the replacement of the friars by secular priests and the “advancement” of the missions to parochial status. Further elaboration of those provisions came, on November 26, when the government was authorized to adopt whatever measures were necessary to effect secularization of the missions.

Franciscan officials at Zacatecas advised Garcia Diego to abide by the measures. As soon as the installation of the diocesan priests prescribed by the legislators had taken place, he was instructed to arrange for trans-  ^[p.6] porting the friars to their Apostolic College in Zacatecas. Meanwhile, the Comisario Prefecto pleaded with the governor for patience and understanding in the implementing of new directíves.⁵

At a meeting in Santa Barbara, on May 27, 1835, the two Franciscan prefects reviewed their positions and settled upon a uniform response to the governmental directives. In an obvious conciliatory gesture, they offered a counter-proposal consisting of three alternate possibilities, any one of which they regarded as compatible with their objectives.

Realizing, however, the limitation placed upon the local governor by the very nature of his office, an accord was reached between the two prefects whereby Fray Francisco Garcia Diego would personally present the Franciscan dilemma to Mexico City’s officialdom.

After a visitation to each of the Zacatecan missions, interrupted fοr the governor’s funeral obsequies at Monterey, Garcia Diego and Fray Bernardino Pérez departed fοr the capital, on November 17. By the time of their arrival at Mexico City, the political complexion of that disturbed land had undergone another of its periodic changes. This time it was from right to left, and the new conservative government headed again by Santa Ana, ever the opportunist, smoothed the paths for the voyaging mnissionaries.⁶

The attitude of the congressional delegates had drifted away from the more unsavory aspects of secularization, at least as far as the California missions were concerned. On June 26, Garcia Diego presented a simple but convincing exposition of the problems afflicting the missions to Joaquin de Iturbide, Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs.

After recalling the historical background of Franciscan endeavors and the benefits that had accrued to the 87,739 neophytes baptized over the years the friar estimated that the number of Indians then under instruction could easily be increased were the clerical personnel available. Unfortunately, he pointed out that only thirteen Fernandino and eight Zacatecan friars remained in California, and many of them were ill and/or advanced in age.

In light of that unfavorable prognosis, he suggested, as the “only means of providing priests in Alta California,”⁷ the establishment of a diocesan form of government. With an imported faculty to staff a local seminary, a bishop could recruit candidates from the native population. That “radical proposal,” though far from the total answer, offered the only practical alternative to the envisioned chaos that would inevitably follow in the wake of secularization.

The various proposals put forth by the Zacatecan prefect on behalf of ^[p.7] ecclesíal affairs in California were discussed in committees throughout most of the summer. Finally, on September 19, 1836, the Mexican Congress adopted, with acting-President José Justo Corros approval, a six-point resolution calling for a formal study on the feasibility of creating a bishopric for the Califοrnias.⁸

The historical framework surrounding formation of a curial form of government for the Church in the Californias can be traced in 1681, when “spiritual jurisdiction over the Peninsula... was in dispute between Juan Garabito, Bishop of Guadalajara and Fray Bartο1οmé de Escafiuela, Bishop of Durango.”⁹ The latter, contending that Baja California belonged to Nueva Vizcaya, customarily delegated faculties to California-bound missionaries, until he was rebuked by Rome and told not to meddle in peninsular affairs.

The feasibility of advancing the internal provinces of northwestern New Spain to diocesan status was formally suggested, as early as 1760. Renewed impetus for the plan came eight years later with the proposal to form Sοnοrα, Sinaloa and Lower California into a separate ecclesiastical j urisdiction.

In 1775, Bishop Antonio Macaruya informed Fray Junípero Serra that the Diocese of Durango exercised authority over future Spanish settlements in California in virtue of the canonical prerogative assigning all designated territories to the nearest established jurisdiction. That claim was rejected by Serra, as was the Bishop of Guadalajara’s less convincing assertion that Alta California belonged to his diocese as “a normal extension of the peninsula over which he did have legitimate authority.”¹⁰

On May 7, 1779, acting upon a recommendation from Spanish officials at Madrid, Pope Pius VI created the Diocese of Sonora,1 ¹ comprising the provinces of Sonora, Sinaloa and both Californias. For the first time, Alta California, hitherto a totally independent field of missionary endeavors, fell within defined canonical boundaries.

The newly created Diocese of Sonora, entrusted to Fray Antonio de los Reyes, was almost entirely a missionary territory. Communications between Sοnοrα and the Californias by land was impossible and the Franciscan prelate, finding himself isolated from the furthest confines of his jurisdiction, satisfied his episcopal obligations by delegating the Franciscan Presidentes as Vicars Forane for Sonora.

At least one prominent historian feels that even in mission times, “Spain should have asked for a bishop for the Californias, considering the huge territory, even though churches were few and the income noth-  ^[p.8] ing.”¹² Indeed, the thought of a mitre fοr Fray Junipero Serra undoubtedly crossed the minds of Spanish officialdom. The Presidente’s biographer recalls that after the establishment of Mission San Carlos, “His Reverence learned that a courier at Madrid had written to the Reverend Father Guardian of our college... that a great honor was waiting the Reverend Father Junipero.” When word reached Monterey, Serra decided against “the distinction or any other which would forestall his being able to live as an apostolic missionary among the infidels and to shed his blood for their conversion.”¹³ He took the extreme precaution of writing an influential acquaintance at the royal court, asking that he veto any further consideration of regal favors, should such ever be discussed.

The faculty of administering the Sacrament of Confirmation, bestowed by succeeding Popes on the missionary Presidents in California, was not renewed, in 1803. That factor greatly disturbed Father Narciso Durάn and, in a letter to the Mexican chief of state, written on September 23, 1830, Dυrάn first proposed, fοr “the spiritual and temporal prosperity of the territory,” the erection of the Californias into a diocese and the appointment of a bishop to govern it. The frightful chaos that befell the Church in the post-secularization period strengthened Durn’s views that a curial government was about the only effective and practical alternative to the existing status, provided its bishop “does not come to rest, but to work.”¹⁴

NOTES TO THE TEXT

¹Αrchiνes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA), Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to José Figueroa, Santa Clara, April 15, 1833. ²ÁΑLΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM. to José Figueroa, Santa Clara, June 15, 1833.

³ÁÁLÁ, Francisco García Diego, O.F.M. to José Figueroa, Santa Clara, June 19, 1834.

⁴ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego to José Figueroa, Santa Clara, October 15, 1833. ⁵ΑΑLΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to José Figueroa, Santa Clara, August 3, 1835.

⁶Ηerbert Ingram Priestly, The IVlexican Nation (New York, 1930), p. 217.

⁷ΑΑLΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.EM. to Mexican Government, Mexico City, July 20, 1836.

⁸ΑΑLΑ, Set-eturia ‘le Juust’.cia y Negocios Eclesidsticos-decree, Mexico City, September 19, 1836. A translation of this document appears in Francis J. Weber, Documents of Cali br nin Catholic Histoi y (Los Angeles, 1965), Pp. 43-44.

⁹Francis J. Weber, “The Development of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the ^[p.9] Californias,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society LXXV (June, 1964), 98.

¹⁰Francis J. Weber, “Church Authority is Traced,” The Tidings, March 17, 1967. ¹¹See Edwin A. Ryan, “Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Spanish Colonies,” Catholic Historical Review V (April, 1919), 15-18.

¹²1aynard J. Geiger, O.F.M., The Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra (Washington, 1959), II, 344.

¹³Francis J. Weber, “Fr. Serra Avoided Honor Of Being Named Bishop,” The Tidings, August 22, 1969.

¹⁴Æephyrin Engelhardt, O.EM., The Missions and Missionaries of California (San Francisco, 1913), III, 494. ^[p.10]

[3] Proposal for Bishopric in the Californias

The Durán-Garcia Diego proposal for creating a diocesan form of government in the Californias was referred to the Archbishopric of Mexico City for further examination. On October 12, 1836, the metropolitan chapter asked Garcia Diego to elaborate on certain of his earlier recommendations. The prefect submitted a “minute account of the spiritual inadequacies under which those distant missions presently function and the greater ones which will surely come” unless the suggestion for a diocese is favorably received.

As for peninsular California, Father Garcia Diego reported that only

Live were active in the immense territory, extending from the
Cape of San Lucas to San Miguel. Lacking spiritual ministration there, the lives of the Indians were hardly distinguishable from those of barbarians or savages. Garcia Diego expressed the conviction that a government-supported diocesan structure could do much towards alleviating some of the more pressing problems by allowing for erection and maintenance of local educational institutions.

Though there was a more equitable distribution of religious personnel in Alta California, the prefect cited poor communications with the interior of Mexico as a typical and pivotal obstacle to continued reliance on the bishopric of Sonora. The friars, especially those from the Apostolic College of San Fernando, were elderly and many of them in failing health. He noted that the inability to replace them would cause the neophytes, “such tender plants in the faith,” to lapse into “the darkness from which they emerged.” He recalled that inasmuch as neither the Diocese of Sonora nor any of the apostolic colleges could sustain the California ^[p.11] apostolate, the only logical alternative was the appointment of a bishop who could immediately establish a college or house of studies where clerical aspirants from both Californias might be accommodated.

Garcia Diego felt that the very presence of such a prelate would reverse the downward trend of things “with the sublime dignity and prestige which his office would enjoy among Protestants whο would respect him, if not fοr religious motives, at least as a man whο occupies a place of social distinction.”¹

Two days after submitting his observations to the chapter, the prefect complained to Joaquin de Iturbide that his confreres in California were “being harassed more now than ever.” He asked the minister to intercede with the President of the Republic “to take some drastic measures to alleviate the conditions of the missionaries,” reminding IturbIde that if the beleaguered friars abandoned their posts, neither he nor his apostolic college would exercise “any further responsibility fοr the spiritual implications evolved.” ²

Shortly thereafter Francisco Garcia Diego returned to Zacatecas, where he offered a detailed explanation of his interventions to the members of the Apostolic College. Upon the prefect’s recommendation, Fray Jose Maria González Rubio was named Presidente of the California missions and charged with “seeing, treating and correcting” the Zacatecans remaining at their post.³

A series of international problems militated against the immediate implementation of the chapter’s recommendations. Poor diplomatic relations with the Papal States, together with the internal turmoil raised by proposals fοr Texas independence, forestalled action until mid-1839.

Meanwhile, the status of ecclesiastical affairs in California continued its downward thrust. Revolutionary unrest, based largely on personal rivalries, challenged the traditional norms of behavior in the far-away province.

With reinstatement of the presidency of Anastasio Bustamante, gestures were made towards solving some of the Church’s more pressing problems in California. On June 22, 1839, the metropolitan chapter submitted a terna of episcopal candidates for the envisioned Diocese of Both Califοrnias⁴ to the Mexican chief-of-state. After discussing the names with his advisors, the president settled on his former classmate, Fray Francisco Garcia Diego, as the government’s preferred choice for the new bishopric.⁵ The Archbishop of Guadalajara was then instructed to begin the customary consistorial scrutίnium,⁶ but a further delay was ^[p.12] occasioned by that prelate’s extended absence on a visitation tour of his far-flung jurisdiction.

Early the following year, Mexico’s ambassador to Rome, T. M. Montoya conveyed the government’s wishes to Pope Gregory XVI, along with the name and qualifications of the formally endorsed candidate. On April 6, 1840, Montoya informed Giambattista Cardinal Lambruschini, papal secretary of state, that his nation “considered it absolutely necessary that the Peninsula of the Californias, in ecclesiastical matters, should be governed with entire independence of the Bishop of Sonora to which See it has been until now subject, and that as well as by reason of its vast extent and because of the great distance which separates it from the capital of the diocese, for which reason the Bishop cannot visit it, nor apportion to it all the pastoral aids needed by the faithful, who are very numerous but little civilized.”

In order to ensure the effect of such an important resolution, “the President, in virtue of a decree of the National Congress, has ordered the drawing up of a complete report from which it resulted that the expediency and utility of the plan was proven by the testimony and opinion not only of the Superior of the Apostolic College of San Fernando, to whose zeal these missions have been entrusted, but also of the administrator of the Diocese of Sonora. A like opinion on the necessity of this measure has been expressed by the former Bishop of the diocese, Don Angel Morales, by the Bishop of the Puebla de Los Angeles, and by the Metropolitan Chapter of the Archdiocese.

“In consequence, the legal requisites having been observed, the Government proposes to His Holiness the approbation and erection of this See, and for its first Bishop the Rev. Fr. Francisco Garcia Diego who, to his learning and Christian and political virtues, unites a practical knowledge of that country where he has for some time held the office of Comisario-Prefecto of the missions, as appears from the canonical examination conducted by the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Puebla, commissioned by His Holiness, which report is annexed.

“The undersigned may add that the Government desired him to beg His Holiness, in consideration of the vast distance in which this district is, not only from the Apostolic See, but from the Metropolitan See, and because of the necessity in which the new Bishop will find himself in organizing it, inasmuch as one part are neophytes or barbarians, that the said Bishop be granted the extraordinary faculties necessary in order that he may be able to meet all cases and smooth away all obstacles which necessarily present themselves in the organization of the diocese; that he ^[p.13]

may take along the priests who want to accompany him, be they secular or regular priests, notwithstanding their respective Superiors to the contrary; and that all the missionaries belonging to religious Orders existing there may remain subject to him, excepting only the Comisario Prefecto and the missionaries who may be occupied in founding new missions and advancing conversions and the propagation of the Faith among the savage tribes; for these missionaries ought to continue using all the faculties granted them by Papal Bulls and Decrees.

“It is also expedient to inform Your Eminence that the Mexican Government has made all suitable arrangements that the new Prelate may not lack the proper support necessary in order to cover the expenses and maintain the decorum of episcopal dignity; and that, in addition, according to a decree of Congress, the Pious Fund established for the support of the Missions in California, is to be placed at his disposal.”⁷

The various facets touching upon advancing the Church in California to diocesan status were studied by officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State for several weeks. Also carefully scrutinized was the exhaustive consistorial process circulated by officials of the Guadalajara curia on the worthiness of Francisco Garcia Diego for the episcopal office. On April 27, 1840, Pope Gregory XVI affixed his seal to the papal bulls erecting the Diocese of Both Californias as an autonomous bishopric, independent of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Sonora.⁸

The Pontiff s lengthy document recognized that the “great roughness of the roads, the rapid currents of the rivers...and the immense mountain chain inhabited by barbarians” necessitated a bishop, who “powerful in word and deed, might edify the people by his speech and example, correct what is depraved, consolidate what is disrupted, strengthen those who are weak in Faith and enlighten the ignorant.”⁹

After reviewing the historical background of ecclesial activities in the Californias and outlining juridical succession in the area, the pope minutely spelled out how the bishop’s material support would depend on “the real estate which the Mexican Government in accordance with its promise will set apart.”¹⁰

A second bull, addressed to the clergy of the diocese, directed the priests to exhibit to their new bishop “due obedience and reverence” and to “receive with humility his salutary admonitions and commands.”

Word reached California, early in 1840, that the Holy See was about to provide a bishop for that area. When Fray González Rubio, Presidente of the Zacatecan friars, hastily conveyed his congratulations, the bishop-  ^[p.15] elect acknowledged that Gïnzález Rubio’s letter was the first to have reached him from California in three years.¹ I As soon as official notification arrived from Rome, Bishop-elect Garcia Diego wrote to the Presidente requesting the priests in the newly created Diocese of Both Californias to offer public prayers of thanksgiving for the pope’s concern on their behalf. The clergymen were also asked “ti explain the great advantages that will accrue from having their own pastor.”¹²

The artistically embellished bulls of appointment reached Garcia Diego in mid-summer, along with a governmental directive that he present himself in Mexico City at the earliest opportunity. The bishop-elect took the constitutional oath before President Anastasio Bustamante, on September 19, 1840.

Fittingly enough, the date selected for the episcopal ordination was October 4, the Feast of Saint Francis. The ceremony was scheduled for the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, near Mexico City. Principal consecrator was the Right Reverend Antonio Maria de Jesús Campos, ³ titular Bishop of Rhesiana and the Mitred Abbot of the national shrine. 14

NOTES TO THE TEXT

¹ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, Ï.F.M. to Metropolitan Chapter, Mexico City, October 15, 1836.

²ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Joaquin de Iturbide, Mexico City, October 17, 1836.

³ëÁLA, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to González Rubio, OEM., Zacatecas, June 19, and July 27, 1837.

⁴ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.Ì., Pa.itoiwi Letter_; Mexico City, October 28, 1840. Translations of this and other related materials can be verified in Francis J. Weber (trans and ed), The 144/ tings of Francisco Gmvin Diego y Moieno (Los Angeles, 1976), ql.

⁵ÁÁLÁ, The chapter’s terna carried the names of Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M., José Maria Guzmán, O.F.Ì. and Joaquin Soriano, C.P.M.

⁶See SALA for a copy of the eighty-eight page Consistorial Proce.cc obtained from the Secret Vatican Archives through the courtesy of the Reverend John Â. McGloin, S.J.

⁷See Jackson Ralston, Appendix II. Fareig” Relations of the United States, 1902. United States vs. Mexico. J” the /Motter of the Case of the Pions Fund of the Ca/itar» tas (Washington, 1903), Pp. 436-437 for an alternate translation. ⁸Âoundaries for the vast new diocese were: the Colorado River in the east; the ^[p.16] 42° degree of north latitude (Oregon line); the Pacific Ocean in the west and all of Baja California.

⁹ΑΑLΑ, Gregory XVI to Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM., Rome, April 27, 1840. See also Jesús García Gutiérrez (comp.), Β~Υario de la Iglesia Mejicana (Mexico, 1951), Pp. 66-69.

10 ΑLΑ, Gregory XVI to Faithful of the Diocese of Both Califοrnias, Rome, April 27, 1840.

¹¹AALA, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to González Rubio, Ο.F.M., Zacatecas, February 1, 1840.

¹²ΑΑLΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM. to González Rubio, Zacatecas, August 11, 1840.

¹³Νοt José María de Jesús Belaυnzarán as stated by Emeterio Valverde Telles, Ιiο-Βibliοgi•afιca Eclesidstica Mexicana (1821-1943) (Mexico, 1949), 1, 320.

¹⁴Francisco Luján, El Colegio ele Guadalupe, 0 Βοsηueßο Crο nοlógicο Histórico y Βiοg-•afea del Colegio Apostólico de Maria Santisinta de Guadalupe de Zacatecas III (1889), 120-124. ^[p.17]

[4] The Friar Bishop—Francisco Garcia Diego [y Moreno]

Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, the man charged with inaugurating the structure of Catholic hierarchical life in the Californias, was born in 1785, on the Feast of the Stigmata of Saint Francis. Interestingly enough, that was only a year after the earthly demise of his great mendicant confrere and predecessor, Fray Junipero Serra, ¹ the humble Franciscan who was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988. Birthplace of this second of Francisco Garcia Diego ² and Ana Maria Morenos³ four sons⁴ was the stately Hacienda de la Daga, ⁵ a few miles from the Mexican village of Lagos,⁶ off the roadway to San Luis Potosi. His parents presented the youngster to their parish priest, Father Thόmas de Lquibel, for the traditional christening ceremonies, at Santa Maria de Lagos,⁷ on September 23, 1785.⁸

Just a decade later, Francisco was enrolled at the Seminario Conciliar de San Jose ⁹ as a clerical student for the Archdiocese of Guadalajara.¹⁰ In those historic surroundings “his love of learning was stimulated by the example of his three brothers, each rising in his respective state and profession of priest, jurist and physician.”¹ > During the following six years, he applied himself diligently to the humanities and the arts.

As proficient in studies as he was popular among his peers, Francisco cemented friendships there that lasted throughout his lifetime. Two of his closest companions, Anastasio Bustamante and Valentin Gόmez Fanas, subsequently entered the political sphere where they rose to the presidency of the Mexican Republic. The orderly routine of seminary life appealed to the young priestly aspirant and undoubtedly influenced his decision to enter the Franciscans, upon completing his courses at the ^[p.18]

In this Iglesia de Santa Maria de Lagos, Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno was baptized on September 23, 1785 ^[p.19] preparatory school, shortly after the turn of the century.

Following the customary three month postulancy, at the Apostolic College of Nuestra Seiiora de Guadalupe, at Zacatecas,¹² Francisco was invested with the religious habit, on November 26, 1801» He made his solemn profession at the conclusion of the canonical novitiate, on December 21, 1802.¹⁴ The next years he devoted to mastering theology, scripture, liturgy, canon law and ecclesiastical history. The youthful student’s intellectual acumen won for him the coveted distinction of corista predicador, even before his ordination.

He was initiated into the clerical state with the reception of tonsure and the minor orders, in the fall of 1804. Bishop Primo Feliciano Marin de Porras of Linares ordained Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno at Saltillo’s Convent of San Estévan, on November 14, 1808.¹⁵

From his earliest priestly days, Fray Garcia Diego utilized his oratorical talents most effectively. His initial appointment was that of assisting the home-mission program then flourishing, on an annual basis, in many of the established parishes of Central Mexico. The young friar’s lingual facility motivated his superiors to ask that he compile a handbook containing the recommended format used in that worthwhile apostolate.

The clear, succinct and persuasive Metodo de Misionar speaks eloquently of the early years in the priesthood of Francisco Garcia Diego,¹⁶ revealing as it does much about the means employed by the Franciscans in their travels through the countryside enkindling and intensifying the faith of the local populace. Measured by the standards of the time, the Metodo was a radical departure from traditional catechetical presentation. Each mission, conducted by a team of friars and lasting from nine to forty days, was placed under the spiritual patronage of Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners. In later years, Garcia Diego issued the Metodo, in printed form, as a legacy to the younger friars who had succeeded him, at Zacatecas.¹⁷ By that time, he had carefully revised the text to accommodate the exigencies personally encountered during his many years in the parochial apostolate.

Fray Garcia Diego also popularized a novena honoring the Blessed Mother under the title, Divina Pastora. Adapted from an earlier format, by Ygnácio Vìllaseñor, the devotion became widespread enough to necessitate its release, in monograph form, in 1830, by Alexo Infante as Novena a la Sma. Virgen Maria en la Advocacion de la Divina Pastora que se Venera en la Sta. Escuela de la Ciudad de Zacatecas.¹⁸

On July 4, 1815, Fathers Garcia Diego¹⁹ and Mariano Velasco²⁰ were ^[p.20] delegated to select a site for the proposed Colegio de Maria Santísima de Ζaρόρan, which had been provided for in a legacy from Manuela Fernández de la Barrena, the Marquesa de Panuco.²¹ The location eventually decided upon was some ten miles north west of Guadalajara.

From July 6, 1816, to August 7, 1819, Father Garcia Diego served as Novice Master²² for the Franciscan community, at Zacatecas,²³ a pivota! position wherein he supervised the spiritual formation of candidates wishing to follow the mendicant life at the Apostolic College of Nuestra Sefiora de Guadalupe. His daily conferences and instructions²⁴ set the tone and spirit for a succeeding generation of friars by imparting to others, through word and example, those basic principles upon which his own innermost religious convictions were founded.

With the expiration of his term as Novice Master, Fray Garcia Diego was promoted to the lectorate of Philosophy and Arts. His initial lecture, delivered in flawless Latin, on January 4, 1820, was a masterful presentation entwined about the words of Solomon: “Wisdom is better than all the most precious things.” He encouraged his listeners to emulate that respect for learning exhibited by such great Franciscan predecessors as Anthony, Bonaventure, Bernardine αnd John Capistran, men outstanding in their learning αnd holiness. This they could do, he said, “by drinking at the illustrious fountain from which all wise men have imbibed true wisdom: from the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is the font, the light, the most brilliant star, the full moon, the mistress, the way, the conductress, the channel, the resplendent column, in fine, all those virtues described by the holy fathers and the universal church.”²⁵

Though he lived in the relatively sheltered cloister of a religious community, Father Garcia Diego was keenly abreast of the turbulent political current then sweeping New Spain. He had worked closely among the people and understood, from first-hand experience, their economic αnd social conditions, as well as the pressures exerted on ecclesiastical authorities by an overly protective αnd paternalistic government.

Quite understandably, his natural sympathies inclined towards the land of his birth. An opportunity for publicly expressing those views came, on November 11, 1821, when Father Garcia Diego accepted an invitation to preach at ceremonies commemorating the successful outcome of Mexican independence. His lengthy discourse, as eloquent as it was provocative, portrayed the breach with Spain as the initial step in the reflorescence of the Catholic faith in an era of justice and equality. From that time onwards, the Zacatecan friar was looked upon as an ardent patriot, and his enthusiasm for the Mexican Republic was never seriously ^[p.21] _é                 . ~         ,    ..,     ..               `é~ _, „~   ~~ ,.•~~,    á~~é^,             .,.\                    1~”ë.

diminished, even in the most demeaning circumstances.²⁶

The confidence and esteem held fοr Garcia Diego by his confreres is indicated by the host of official positions to which he was elected in subsequent years. He twice served on the college discretory, or board of counselors, and, on July 21, 1828,²⁷ was designated Commissary Prefect of the missions, a post of considerable importance in which he oversaw and directed the community activities on the frontier, as well as dealings with officials of the territorial government.

In 1832, he was named vicar, or vice guardian of the Franciscan community at Zacatecas. Though busily involved with the internal administration of affairs at the Apostolic College of Nuestra Seiīοra de Guadalupe, Garcia Diego used every opportunity for continuing his evangelical activities, both in Zacatecas and the adjoining communities.

It was during Fray Garcia Diego’s tenure as Commissary Prefect that the Apostolic College of Νuestϊa Seïiorα de Guadalupe received the governmental mandate to involve itself in the missionary apostolate of Alta California, where the friars of San Fernando in Mexico City had labored since 1769. The directive was politically motivated, insofar as the Mexican Republic wanted the Spanish-born priests in those crucial frontier areas, where nationality and loyalty were so closely identified, replaced by a native clergy.

Prior to formal Spanish recognition of Mexican independence, in 1836, an exaggerated upsurge of nationalism manifested itself at many levels of officialdom, including those dealing with ecclesiastical affairs. While pointing out that the Zacatecanos lacked the personnel to assume charge of all twenty-one of California’s missionary outposts, Fray Garcia Diego dutifully promised to implement the government’s request in light of existing Zacatecan commitments.

As part of a long-term program fοr Alta California, Garcia Diego asked fellow friars Mariano Sosa, Francisco Cuculla, Jesus Maria Martinez and Antonio Anzar to embark upon a fact-finding expedition, early in 1831. The four missionaries left fοr California and spent the remainder of the year assisting their Spanish-born confreres at San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano and San Gabriel. In January of 1832, three of the Zacatecanos returned with their recommendations for fulfilling the government’s directive that the Apostolic College of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe involve itself actively in the California enterprise.

After thoroughly investigating the written report and oral reflections submitted by the friars during their California sojourn, Fray Garcia ^[p.23] Diego recommended that final authorization be given by Franciscan officials for permanently assuming direction of the northernmost Fernandino establishments. Nine of the Guadalupe friars volunteered for the new apostolate and around that small nucleus, the Zacatecan influence was expanded to the last of its many missionary fields.²⁸

Viewing “the importance of the subject, there is a remarkable absence of original records respecting the coming of the Zacatecanos and the division of the missions.”-”⁹ In any event, by the summer of 1832, Fray Garcia Diego and his companions had completed all the necessary preparations and were ready for their journey to California. The government provided the paltry sum of 200 pesos for travelling expenses, an allocation sufficient to defray little more than their transportation to Tepic.³⁰ During the two months they waited for their ship, the friars busied themselves in preaching and conducting missions and “it “‘as impossible not to feel respect for their character and a degree of veneration mixed with pity on thinking of their destiny and observing their very pious, humble and meek demeanor.”³

The small band of missionaries finally accumulated funds enough to book passage on the brig Catalina, which sailed from San Blas, on August 13, with the newly appointed governor for California, Jοsé Figueroa. Already far behind their contemplated schedule, the friars experienced another exasperating delay when a portion of the crew mutinied and left th_{e μα}Q,Πn_ger_ç ΜΠ1Έ_Έdin_g th_e οι»‘ _rρnr, _çtr_αnd_ed it (‘ap_e ς,n _T ńaç, Overly eager to arrive at their destination, the friars rashly determined to proceed northward on foot through the arid peninsula.

By the time they had reached Mission San Jos é de Cabo, the missionaries realized the impracticability of their hastily arrived at decision. Fray Garcia Diego dispatched a message to the governor, admitting their “utter ignorance” at attempting to continue the “immense journey” through the desolate wasteland. So discouraged was the Comisnrio-Prefecto that he seriously doubted whether he and his companions would ever get to the missions.³²

During the ensuing weeks, the friars administered the sacraments in the sparsely-populated area. Several additional pleas were sent to the governor concerning the “desolate group” of Franciscans and the anxiety about continuance of their work. Ultimately Figueroa regained control of the Cata/ma, and, in early December, departed with the missionaries from La Paz.³³ The last leg of the sea voyage was uneventful, and the Zacatecanos sailed into Monterey, on January 15, to begin a new era in ^[p.24]

Santa Barbara Mission, the “queen” of the frontier outposts along El Camino Real, was the first residence of Calßfbrôôßa’s proto bishop. ^[p.25] California’s ecclesiastical annals.

Soon after his arrival, Fray Garcia Diego journeyed to Mission San J οs to confer with the Fernandino Cοmisnriο-Ρrefectο, Fray Narciso Durán. Though the two friars represented distinct missionary traditions, their common Franciscan heritage fused an amicable relationship that perduured throughout the dozen turbulent years both were spared fοr the Church’s apostolate in California.

It was decided that the eight missions northward from San Carlos would be staffed by the Zacatecanos, while the rest of the foundations would remain, at least temporarily, under the spiritual supervision of the Fernandinos. The genial nature of their obviously-delicate discussions was typified by the concordat funeral drawn up, signed and circulated between the two Franciscan communities whereby suffrage obligations were pledged towards friars of either group succumbing at their post. Fray Garcia Diego, along with Fray Jοsé Bernardino Ρérez, took up their work at Santa Clara to relieve the aging Jose Viader, a veteran of forty years on the California scene.

Vαile ιhis unties αs prefect did not ρrovíde Fray Gár’.ία DíegΥ with time enough for all the spiritual ministrations he desired for his people at Santa Clara, the zealous prefect proved to be a worthy and able successor to his Fernandino forebears and one deeply respected and loved by the Indians then residing at the mission. There were no substantial alterations of the buildings at Santa Clara during Garcia Diego’s tenure.

The prefect’s initial circular to the priests of his jurisdiction reflected a deep concern fοr the welfare of the Indians. He dwelt extensively on the question of corporal punishment and using the lash on recalcitrant neophytes. Though deploring the quantity and serious nature of their admitted crimes and offenses, Garcia Diego believed that the lash, as a method of punishment, had outlived whatever usefulness it may have once enjoyed. Not only did the practice run contrary to his own temperament, but the prefect regarded whipping as contrary to the basic principles of pedagogy. He informed his confreres that such punishments had been abrogated, at Santa Clara, and directed that “not another lash of the whip is to be administered to a single neophyte” in the Zacatecan missions.³⁴

On another occasion, Fray Garcia Diego reminded his priests that “the government had forbidden clergymen to meddle in political affairs, either from the pulpit or in the confessional.” Though recognizing that the causes fοr the directive did not envision local conditions, the prefect advised against “any comments which could be construed, even remotely, as adverse to the government.”^{35  [p.26]} NOTES TO THE TEXT

tΑ biographical sketch ^*[p.0]*f the prelate, supposedly prepared by the family and veri-
fied by ecclesiastical authorities at Guadalajara, appeared in Mexico City’s El
Tiemplo, September ^*[p.27]*, ^{*[p.189]**[p.6]*}.

²Francisco, the son of Gaspar Garcia Diego and Rita Gertrudis Mordo, was a native of Leόn, a small village about thirty miles south of Lagos.

³Τhe Morenos were a well-known family. A first cousin of Francisco, Pedro Moreno, was a field marshal in Mexico’s War for Independence. His fame accounts for the affixing of the familial name to his birthplace, Lagos de Moreno. Several of Francisco’s cousins became priests and at least four were advanced to the bishopric, namely, Juan Cayetano Gόmez de Portugal y Solis of Michoacán, José Maria de Jesús Portugal y Serratos of Aguascalientes, Ignacio Mateo Guerra y Alba of Zacatecas and Jοsé Maria del Refugio Guerra y Alba of Zacatecas.

⁴Maríanο became a physician; Salvador a lawyer and Jos é a priest. The family name was perpetuated by Salvador’s marriage to Francisca Enriquez de Castilla. ⁵Αrchiνes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA), Carlos Garcíadiego to Joseph T. McGucken, Mexico City, April 24, 1940. °Though its population is now crowding 40,000, Lagos has lost none of that charm and simplicity for which it was known even in the late 1700s.

⁷Τhe parish church, dedicated May 6, 1741, to Our Lady’s Assumption, is still one of the nation’s most beautiful churches.

⁸ΑΑLΑ, “Certifica: que en el libro mimero 27 de Bimtismos del Archivo de este Curwtο en el jblia 271 freute...,” August 19, 1966.

⁹Ρhe Seminario Conciliar ale San Jost was established at Guadalajara with eight students, December 23, 1696, by Felipe de Galindo y Chávez, O.P. See Jos é Maria Conejo, “Sep inan en el CCLI Amuvervario de la Fσuλacίόττ del Seminnrio Tridentino ale la Αrgυidiόcesis de Gundnlajmrv,” Boletíττ Eclesiństico de Αrgυidiόcesιs y ale la Biqa California XVIΙΙ (October, 1947), 373. For a history of the foundation, see Daniel R. Loweree El Semiiiario Conciliar de Guadalajara (Guadalajara, n.d.). ¹⁰Μοisés Vega y Kegel, Lagos y Sus Hombres (Mexico, 1952). See also Joaquin Romo de Vivar y Torres, Guadalajara (Guadalajara, 1964), p 42.

¹Jοseph J. O’Keefe, O.EM., “Rt. Rev. Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, O.S.E, D.D.,” Pacific Coast Cathοlic Αimaianc (San Francisco, 1892), p. 17.

i²The Apostolic College of Nuestra Seīiora de Guadalupe, founded in 1707, was, like its sister institutions, an autonomous establishment subject directly to the Commissary General of the Indies. Its chief purpose was “to gather, educate and orientate friars toward a more ascetical life than that common in the provinces.” Paramount of its many works was that of “converting the Indian tribes on the frontier and conducting missions among the faithful in the homeland.” See Francis J. Weber, Readings r Califorma Catholic History (Los Angeles, 1967), Pp. 85-86. ^[p.27] é ³Âï/ctéo Ecles’i kt’co plc Guai/adajar” y /a Baja California XI (March, ^{*[p.194]**[p.7]*}), ^*[p.68]*.
é⁴ÁÁLÁ, Carlos Garcíadiego to Joseph T. McGucken, íIexico City, April ^*[p.24]*, ^{*[p.194]**[p.0]*}.
é⁵Seíeral sources give November ^*[p.13]*th. In a letter to this writer, the Archbishop

of Monterrey explained the discrepancy “poi las gneras intestines que ha pai/eci-

i/o iVléxico...” See AALA, Alfonso Espino to Francis J. Weber, Monterrey,

December 5, 1966.

°^,Maynard J. Gcigcr, O.EM. (Trans.), “Ll /Vlýtïééï de IlImini”;” Provincial Annals VI (October, 1944), 14.

1710 copy of that initial edition, printed at Zacatecas, March 11, 1841, has been seen by this writer. The text was incorporated into Jïsé Francisco Sotomayor’s Historia del Áñïstülicï Colegio ale Nuestra Seîûïra de Gunda/ape de Zacatecas (Zacatecas, 1874), pp. 237-255. A more modern, but less well-edited text was released, in 1931, by Archbishop Francisco Orozco y Jimenez, as Métoé(o d/e Mhvonar Entre Fieles, que ha Usailo Siempre el Colegio Añïstülicï de lira. Sra. de Guada/ripe ale Zacatecas. That fourteen page monograph was published at Guadalajara by Talleres Graficos “Radio” It also appeared in the ßoletín Eclesiactico de la Árquicléücecis de Guadalajara _y de la ÂéÞa Ca/lib grin III (J anuary, 1932), 10-20. The Métoilo ‘vas translated into English by Maynard J. Geiger, O.F.i., and appeared in Provincial AimaIs VI (October 1944), 14-26 for a thorough discussion of this matter, see Francis J. Weber, “Mdtoi/o ale Mramnar of Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM., Bishop of Both Californias,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society LXXXIÉI (September-December, 1972), 187-197.

¹⁸AALÁ, Copy from one in the possession of Harry Downie.

¹⁹Juuan Cruz Rýßiz de Cabañas_; Historia Breve _y Comñenihosa del Cïlegéo Áñïstülicï ale Propaganda Fide ale lira. Sra. de Zapopan (Guadalajara, 1925), p. 14. ²°Alfonso de Alba Martin, Entonces y Ahorn (Guadalajara, 1944), 1. 97.

^{2 1}See the 1931 edition of iV1dtodo ale Misionar, p. 1., Prologue by Francisco Orozco y Jimenez.

²²Ñeter T. Conmy, “Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, First Catholic Bishop of California,” The Grézzly Bear LXVI (February, 1940), 3.

²³ÁÁLÁ, Pascuiil Réßiz, OEM., “Datos et Documentos” III.

²⁴Én the Santa Barbara Mission Archives is a 193 page manuscript of sermons, written in a neat, almost print-like writing entitled “Apuntes utiles para hacer sermones para !ßsiün _y nlganos paneg1ricos, Aî o de 1823.”

²⁵ÁÁLÁ, Discourse Given to the Clerics at the Beginning of Their Course of Philosophy, January 4, 1820. (Transcript). Another translation can be found in the Provincial Annals X (July, 1947), 82-85, by Maynard J. Geiger, OEM.

²⁶AALÁ, Sermon que en el Solemnisima F11nci(1n que hizo este Colegio de N.S. de Guadalupe de Zacatecas...( Guadalajara, 1822). Imprenta de D. Mariano Rodriguez, 32 pp. He noted for example, how later “political convulsions have torn my heart apart for they have ruptured the peace and tranquility that I seek ^[p.28] for my flock.” See AALA, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. tð José Maria Héjar, n.p., June 17, 1845.

²⁷Ìaynard J. Geiger, OEM., Frimmiscann Missionaries in Hispanic California, 17691848. /1 Biographical Dictiom ny (San Marino, 1969), p. 98.

²⁸The Zacatecans had previously toiled in the missionary fields of Texas. See Michael B. McCloskey, O.F.M., The Ãoô matiíe Years of the Misséïimcy College of Santa Cruz of Querétaro, 1683-1733 (Washington, 1955).

²⁹Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California (San Francisco, 1886), IIÉ, 319. ³⁰ÁALÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to José Figueroa, San José ciel Cabo, September 5, 1832.

31 Quoted in Francis J. Weber, A Âéograñhical Sketch of Right Reverend Francisco Garce Diego y Moreno, O.F.M. (Los Ángeles, 1961), p 6.

³²ËÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to José Figueroa, San José del Cabo, September 5, 1832.

³³ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM. to José Figueroa, Casitas, October 6, 1832.

³⁴ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.P.M. to friars, Santa Clara, July 4, 1833. ³SÁALÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to friars, n.p., June 20, 1834. ^[p.29]

[5] Bishop of Both Californias (1840-1846)

In October 28, Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego dispatched his first

Pastoral Letter to the faithful of the Diocese of Both Californias. After briefly outlining the reasons for creating the autonomous ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the prelate explained how the government, “prompted by the bond of love which the legislators exercised for those separated by such an enormous distance,” had attempted to alleviate the unhappy status of the Church by asking the Holy Father to provide a bishopric for the area. Noting that he had accepted the episcopate “in the wake of our own smallness,” he resolved to spend whatever remained of his earthly sojourn at their service, pledging to console them in their sorrows, enlighten them in times of doubt, strengthen them in moments of weakness and teach them the saving message of Christ. Bishop Garcia Diego’s optimistic plans for the diocese included primary schools, a seminary and “other pious and useful establishments” geared at blotting out human suffering and furthering Christian morality.¹

The freshly anointed prelate promptly petitioned the government for payment of the revenues pledged in its proposal to the Holy See, pointing out that California’s small population would not be financially viable for many years. In addition to a seminary, the bishop sought a qualified faculty “ti assist in this great enterprise.” He also wanted to erect a cathedral and episcopal residence. Though he was aware of “the sad condition of the Pious Fund,” the prelate was encouraged by the government’s pious and paternal determination to leave nothing undone in fulfilling its religious commitments towards the California bishopric. He wanted “competent administrators” to look after the missions as well as ^[p.30]

The first bishop of both Californias was raised to the episcopate in Mexico’s National Shrine and Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe.

special living provisions for the friars.

To his request that the Dominicans in Baja California be encouraged to remain at their posts until adequate replacements were obtainable from other sources, the prelate added a plea for authorization to take whatever priests he could recruit to California.

A number of “business matters relative to the Church in California” ² delayed the prelate’s departure from Mexico for some months. He made a series of personal appeals to religious communities in Mexico for clerical personnel, but was unsuccessful in obtaining governmental authorization to import Jesuit and Vincentian missionaries from Europe.³ During his visit to the Apostolic College of Santa Cruz de Quer€taro, the bishop ordained Antonio González de Calderón.

Realizing that the governmental pledge of financial sustenance was more prornissary than real, Bishop Garcia Diego decided to leave for California with little more than the $6000 which Pedro Ramirez was able to salvage from the debt-ridden Pious Fund. The prelate and his twelve companions, among whom was his niece, Josefita,⁴ journeyed to San Blas, where they negotiated for their transportation with Captain Henry John Crouch,⁵ on the Rosalind. The English brig arrived at San Diego, late on December 10, 1841. Early the next day, the party was enthusiasti-  ^[p.31]

Right Reverend Francisco Garcia Diego y i’Vioreno, Bishop of Both Californias

cally welcomed by the local populace and given lodgings in the large two-story residence of Juan Bandini. Λ week later the bishop administered Confirmation and conferred minor orders on three of his clerical aspirants at the presidio chapel.

The bishop’s earlier prognosis about the Church’s future in California proved to be startlingly accurate. At San Diego and elsewhere, he found the desolation complete, most of the missions in ruins and abandoned, the fertile mission lands and vineyards, with the herds of cattle seized, the Indians reduced to about four thousand and utterly destitute.⁶ He also discovered that the good will accorded him by some was not universally shared, especially in certain official circles. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, a “peculiarly misplaced Voltairian anticlerical,”⁷ for example, felt that “the coming of the bishop is going to cause much trouble,” believing as he did that “the age of theocratic domination” was past. While admitting that “new missions among the savages” were desirable, he doubted if anything was “further from the minds of the priests.”

The surroundings at San Diego militated against making that town the permanent episcopal seat, though it was formally designated as such by Pope Gregory XVI. Bishop Garcia Diego “concluded, after much thought, that each additional clay at San Diego” contributed less to the ^{[p.32]* [p.33]} well-being of religion.⁹ The meagre population gave no signs of expanding in the foreseeable future and, at the suggestion of Jose Antonio Aguirre, a wealthy merchant and ship owner, the bishop decided to relocate at Santa Barbara,¹⁰ the true center of whatever Catholic life yet existed in California.

Passage was arranged and, on January 11, 1842, the prelate and his party disembarked at the picturesque Channel City, on the Guipuzcoana, where “guns were fired, skyrockets shot off’ and the mission bells were rung. The festive arrival of “a functionary that but few in California had ever beheld” was described by Alfred Robinson:

A11 was hustle; men, women, and children hastening to the beach, banners flying, drums beating, the soldiers marching. The whole population of the place turned out, to pay homage to the first Bishop of California. At eleven o’clock the vessel anchored. He came on shore, and was welcomed by the kneeling multitude. All received his benediction—all kissed the pontifical ring.

The “enthusiastic, pious and fervent” greetings by local officials were exceedingly encouraging to the bishop. The natives and the gente de razón repeatedly entreated him to remain permanently at Santa Barbara. Inasmuch as “the principal portion of the diocese” was centered in the local presidio, the bishop eventually did agree to establish his official home at a locale where “security, population and commerce”¹¹ afforded easy communications, from one extremity of the jurisdiction to the other.

Shortly after taking up residence at Santa Barbara Mission, Bishop Garcia Diego dispatched a second pastoral letter to the people of the Diocese of Both Californias. Repeating his earlier-announced plans fοr the area’s future development of Catholic life, the prelate pleaded for assistance in implementing his program fοr a cathedral, seminary, schools and episcopal residence through establishment of tithing.¹²

On May 5, 1842, he appointed Jοsé Antonio Aguirre treasurer and overseer of the tithing program in which position he would “deposit the donations, extend my gratitude and grant receipts.”¹³ This and subsequent attempts at fund raising proved unsuccessful, however, and large piles of stones were heaped up, in several places...as mute reminders of earthly ideals. 14

A number of minor alterations were made in the living quarters to render the historic mission at Santa Barbara more suitable to the bishop, his students and official family. l5

The illusory hope fοr financial assistance from the Pious Fund¹⁶ did ^[p.34]

The Biblioteca Ìïntereyensis-Ángelorum is now on exhibit nt San Fernando Mission ^[p.35]*

PUBLICATIONS DATES

^*[p.36]

THE BIBLIOTHECA MONTEREYENSIS-ANGELDRUM
DIOECESEOS

In early 1968 the old Bihhotheca A/lonntereyeasis-Angeloru mm Dioeceseos was removed from storage and transferred to Queen of Angels Seminary, where it was catalogued and categorized. The historic library was eventually placed on permanent display in a newly restored room of the adjacent Mission San Fernando. The provenance of the Bώhhοtheιa is fascinating. Though most of the books had long been in California, it was only in the years after 1842 that the), found their way into the theological library formed by Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno for the area’s initial seminary.

lihat books had been gathered from the missions and private donors were moved from Santa Barbara, in 1844, to quarters pm”idcd at nearby Santa Ines for the newly autonomous Seminary of Our Lady of Refuge. During its four decades at Santa Ines, the collection occupied a large room in the central part of the old mission building, not far from the two-story adobe housing the seminary proper.

When the seminary’s prospectus was broadened to include non-clerical aspirants, the college, later placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was moved to another site about a mile and a half from the mission, on the vast 36,000 acre ranch. While students continued to have access to the Bi!,!jotheca, the semi-naη^, library was never transferred to the new location.

No specific check list of titles for any given period has been discovered, though an inventory drawn up, in 1853, mentions 744 volumes as belonging to the library. In 1874, Hubert Howe Bancroft visited Santa Ines and recorded seeing^- about 600 tomes in the Bib!iotheca. Sometime between November, 1882 and the spring of 1884, Bishop Francis Mora had the library moved to his residence in Los Angeles, adjacent to Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral. When a new three-story edifice was erected, in 1888-1889, the books were placed in specially designed quarters off a tunnel-way connecting the rectory with the tower of the church.

The Bibliotheca Λontereyensis-ΑngeΙοϊm Discceseos remained at the cathedral, until 1933, when an earthquake so damaged the building that it had to be completely replaced. At that time the collection was taken to the diocesan preρaratorl. seminary, located in Hancock Park. Accoinmοdations were made for storing the library in the basement area immediately beneath the central foyer. From that time onwards, the Bίbhotheisι ceased to be utilized as a learning tool.

Shortly after the opening, at Saint John’s Seminary, of the Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library, on September 22, 1940, the Bibliotheca io”teieyi’”s!v-Asigelo-issm Dίaίescos was again crated and transported the sixty-five oiles tι Camarillo. There it was placed in two caged rooms on the bottom level of the reference stacks. Sporadic attempts “‘ere made to acquisition the collection and a number of obviously valuable tomes were indeed assimilated into the active seminary library. Several of the more attractively bound book sets were used to fill out the shel”es left vacant in the seminary’s parlor by the removal of a large collection of specimens. ^[p.37] not forestall the bishops recourse to other possible financial sources, though none ever brought about any substantial results. The bishop notified the clergy of the diocese, on January 20, 1843, about his renewed intentions fοr collecting tithes, asking that the faithful be earnestly exhorted to comply “with the precept of supporting the Church.”¹⁷ All Catholics, with the exception of the Indians, were asked to contribute 10% of their earnings as well as a percentage of their yearly increase in flocks and grapevines. Predictably, proceeds from the campaign were pitifully small and the bishop was nοt optimistic that the future would “promise much more in this meagerly populated area, scattered as it is over such vast deserts.”¹⁸ The paucity of Catholics, coupled with their relatively poor economic status, resulted in only about $1,700. Though he had tolerated a system of stole fees in certain areas of Baja California, the bishop expressed his personal disfavor at seeing such a plan adopted on a diocesan basis.¹⁹

Apart from the Pious Fund, the financial position of the Diocese of Both Californias was always acutely precarious. Οn March 26, 1843, Governor Micheltorena helped to ease conditions slightly by restoring the temporal management of several missions to the Church, on the provision that one-eighth of their annual income would accrue to the government.

About a year afterwards, Garcia Diego asked the governor if the quar-tcrs used by the friars might be considered Svle property of the churches to which they were attached. I-le also urged that the Church be given dominion over the adjoining orchards and vineyards.²⁰ When that plea went unanswered, the bishop warned that “the complete collapse of divine worship” was imminent.² Ι

Because of the extreme distances involved, Bishop Garcia Diego could nοt personally visit Peninsular California during his episcopal tenure. To provide fοr the spiritual care of that vast territory, he conferred upon the Dominican Presidente the title and prerogative of Vicar Forane, whereby all normal canonical problems could be resolved without recourse to the bishop.²²

Οn August 23, 1842, the prelate announced plans fora pastoral visitation through the diocese. It was his hope to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation and “personally investigate” the status of Divine Worship, adopting all measures necessary to strengthen and increase the practice of the Faith.²³ The proposed journey was cancelled fοr “unforeseen cir-cumstances”²⁴ the following month. Two years later, Garcia Diego was ^{[p.38]* [p.39]}

able to resume his envisioned visitation by treks to Monterey, Santa Clara, Sαn Jose and San Francisco. While he may have experienced some happy and consoling incidents on the visitation, as a whole the prelate was depressed by the sight of the once prosperous missions which were then nearly all in a state of poverty and misery.

The initial blessing of the holy oils in California occurred at Santa Barbara during holy Week, of 1842 and, on June 29, Miguel Gómez²⁵ became the proto-priest ordained in and for the Diocese of Both Californias. It was also in mid 1842, that the missions of San Miguel and Sαn Luis Obispo were ceded to diocesan administration, becoming thereby the first strictly canonical “parishes” in California.

On October 27, 1843, the bishop requested the Minister of Economic Affairs and Public Instruction to bring the plight of the Church in the Californias to the attention of President Valentin Canalizo. The prelate pointed out that only complete restoration of the Pious Fund could reverse the otherwise-inevitable “extinction of the pueblos” in California. While the bishop expressed a personal willingness to “continue suffering silently,” he doubted whether the desperate circumstances of the diocese could be indefinitely hidden from the pope. Nor did he think it likely that the Holy See would name a successor “after my rapidly approaching death” in view of the government’s failure to abide by its earlier commitments.²⁶ Beyond that, Bishop Garcia Diego wondered who “would want to govern a diocese so completely lacking the most basic items and one without any type of subsistence.” California’s first bishop concluded with his plea for a “minimal respect due the episcopate” with which he had been invested.²⁷ As for attempts at collecting tithes, Garcia Diego saw “no other alternative to that system practiced in all nations, even non-Catholic ones, namely, that the faithful provide for their clergy directly.”²⁸

The creation of a bishopric for the Californias necessitated totally restructuring ecclesial life in the area, inasmuch as the superiors of both the Franciscan communities had previously exercised the “ordinary” canonical jurisdiction possessed by apostolic colleges. The obvious need for a careful delineation of their respective prerogatives was demonstrated, in late 1843, when Father Lorenzo Quijas notified the bishop that he had been named Vice Prefect and Vice Commissary for the Zacatecan missions. Bishop Garcia Diego immediately informed college officials that he considered that appointment as “unusual and even injurious” to the religious life of the diocese, pointing out that all ecclesiastical jurisdiction in California originated from episcopal delegation, and not the ^[p.40] pontifical charters of the apostolic colleges which had lost their force when the area was advanced to canonical status.²⁹ Inasmuch as the bishop did not regard Quijas’ appointment in the best interest of the diocese,³⁰ he categorically refused to recognize ít.³¹

In view of the paucity of funds and personnel available, it was a courageous decision, on the part of Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego, to implement his long-expressed wishes to establish a seminary for the diocese of Both Californías. That institution, with all its deficiencies, was probably the prelate’s greatest contribution to the Church in California. Shortly after taking up residence at Mission Santa Barbara, 1842, the bishop had inaugurated formal classes for his handful of clerical candidates in the rear apartments off the corridor facing the patio. The embryonic institution functioned for almost two years until the number of students αnd inadequate facilities necessitated more commodious quarters.

Early in 1844, Bishop Garcia Diego directed Fathers José Jίmenο, Juan Moreno and Francisco Sánchez to petition Governor Manuel Micheltorena fοr a grant of land adjacent to Mission Santa Ines, on which a permanent building for a conciliar seminary could be erected. The governor responded affirmatively, on March 16, by allotting to the Diocese of Both Californias the four Caiiadas of Sotonocomu, Alisguey, Calabaza αnd Aquichummo. That original grant, known as the Caliada de los Pinos, was augmented, on September 26, by an additional two square leagues on the northern αnd western sides of the initial area.³² It was a generous gesture fοr which the bishop hastened to express his gratitude. The parcel of land, lying on the north bank of the Santa Ines River, which eventually amounted to 35,499 acres, was further enhanced by an annual pledge of $500 which the governor offered to pay personally fοr youngsters unable to meet the modest tuition.³³

Construction began shortly thereafter at Santa Ines under the supervision of Father Jimeno. The top floor of the two-story adobe edifice, devoted to dormitory quarters, had a porch or balcony facing the front wing of the mission. On the ground level were classrooms and several apartments fοr the professors. The handsome structure, with its roof of red tiles, was an altogether imposing and comfortable building ideally suited fοr the educational needs of the times. The library, subsequently known as the Bibliotheca Montereyensis-Angelorum Dioeceseos, already numbering several hundred tones, was housed in a room near the central part of the old mission.³⁴ For some unknown reason, “the first educational institution in what is now the State of California”³⁵ was located, not on ^[p.41] the governor’s generous land grant, but within the confines of Mission Santa Ines quadrangle itself.

The day of May 4, 1844, was set aside fοr formally dedicating California’s proto-seminary under the titular protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Though he had launched the enterprise with practically no financial assistance, the bishop was confident about the institution’s eventual success. He envisioned the seminary as “the seed from which zealous and charitable priests will sustain divine worship and, through their teachings and example, maintain the good customs of the country.³⁶

Bishop Garcia Diego personally compiled the rules and operational procedures fοr the seminary. A monastic horarium, much like that followed at the Apostolic College of Nuestra Seίiοrn de Guadalupe, at Zacatecas, was adopted. Students were expected to study the traditional theological manuals then used in the seminaries of Mexico, after which they were to present their observations and problems to the faculty for further elucidation.

Unfortunately, the seminary never achieved the lofty goals set by its founder. Even the bishop was forced to say that “in spite of my efforts, little or no success has been realized at the diocesan seminary.”³⁷ And yet, while “only about ten of its graduates became priests,”³⁸ the institution represented “a transition period between the glorious days of old when saintly and industrious friars reaped a harvest of souls and the mod-

f,•_A,,,,.,         rh r Ι,.,ε . _sed i_ts S_ecο d Q “r’ „‚r “39

Devotion to Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, was a hallmark of the Zacatecan friars. In his pastoral letter of January 4, 1843, the bishop announced pleas to place the Diocese of Both Californias “under the patronage and special protection of the most beautiful queen, Mary most holy, Refuge of Sinners”⁴⁰ and directed that suitable ceremonies mark the occasion at the various missions. After listening to the traditional panegyric, the faithful were to be exhorted to acknowledge the exalted place of honor and love in the divine economy of salvation occupied by Mary, the Mother of God. The patronage of Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, has never been repealed.

Unquestionably, the existence of the Pious Fund was “the single most important element in the Holy See’s determination to grant jurisdictional autonomy”⁴¹ to the Church in the Californias. When the Mexican Government initially proposed creating a diocese in the northernmost of its provinces, pledges were made that the properties of the trust would be ^[p.42] placed at the disposal of that area’s bishop and his successors, who would, in turn, manage and utilize the resources along lines indicated by the original donors.⁴² That stipulation was plainly stated in T. M. Montoya’s petition to Rome:

...it is proper to inform Your Eminence that the Mexican Government has taken all proper measures so that the new prelate may not lack a decent income which is necessary to sustain the expenses and respect and the dignity of a Bishop; and in addition, according to a decree of Congress, the Pious Fund destined fοr the support of the missions in the Californias is to be placed at his disposa1.⁴³

It was in virtue of this pledge that provisions were made, in the subsequent papal bulls, about the new diocese having “as an income for its maintenance in perpetuity the Fund which the same Government promised to surrender.”⁴⁴

Early in 1842, Antonio Lόρez de Santa Ana, Provisional President of Mexico, asked Pedro Ramirez, Bishop Garcia Diego’s financial agent, for a loan of $40,000 frοm the already depleted Pious Fund.⁴⁵

When Ramirez refused, Santa Ana had that portion of the 1840 legislation bestowing the administration of the fund to the bishop repealed, thereby assuming, on behalf of the national government, control of the trust, an action that was legalized on February 8. His subsequently stated purpose was “to fulfill most faithfully the beneficent and national objects designed by the founders without the slightest diminution of the properties destined to that end.”⁴⁶ The decree of February 5, 1842 did not impugn, impair or alter the rights of the cestius que trust, but rather, obliged government officials to invest and manage the Pious Fund in fulfillment of the wishes placed by the donors.

Further legislation, dated October 24, 1842,⁴⁷ directed that the holdings of the Pious Fund with all the deeds, writings and evidences of title thereof be auctioned⁴⁸ fοr a sum equal to their capitalized value at six percent. Proceeds frοm the sale, as well as the remaining cash belonging to the Fund, was to accrue to the Mexican treasury. It was gratuitously stated that the government would shoulder the obligation of annually paying the missions an amount equal to six percent of the capital value of the trust fund, fοr the uses and purposes of the trust, as set up by the fοunders.⁴⁹

In virtue of this latter provision, Juan Rodriguez de San Miguel approached the government, on March 22, 1845, with a request fοr ^[p.43]

$16,000, which he claimed was due the bishop and $109,000 the missions and missionaries, from the Pious Fund. He produced evidence that only $603 had been received in the previous three years, with the result that the Church in California was re-reduced to abject poverty. The intervention was effective fοr, on April 3, 1845, Interim President Jose Joaquin de Herrera issued an executive order stating that the General Congress wanted the credits and other unsold properties related to the Pious Fund of the Californias immediately returned to the bishop and his successors,⁵⁰ in accord with the legislation of September 19, 1836.⁵¹ There are no extant records on which to determine what, if any, property was turned over to the bishop’s agent under this decree.

The ultimate financial blow came, on March 18, 1845, when Governor Pio Pico notified the bishop that the missions would be sold to defray the expenses of war with the United States. On the following May 28, the Assembly passed its invalidS² but effective “Decree fοr Renting Sorne and Converting Other Missions into Pueblos. “S³

Though he always harbored a deep-seated opposition to stole fees, the bishop reluctantly agreed to permit the practice where the consent of the faithful could be obtained, “since all remedies, even useless ones, must be prescribed to the fatally sick person.”⁵⁴ In a lengthy letter to Jοsé Maria Hijar, the bishop pleaded for governmental support to inaugurate a new chain of missions along the coast “to assure the governments possession of that immense territory between San Francisco αnd Oregon.” Such a measure, the bishop conjectured, would give a new vitality to the population, and “provide a boost to agriculture, the arts, commerce, fishing and sailing.” He also said that it was imperative fοr the government to support the Church, through an energetic αnd equitable system of ecclesial support in tune with local circumstances. Bishop Garcia Diego expressed the probably well-founded view that every other measure, with the exception of restoration of the Pious Fund and inauguration of new missions, “would be merely palliatives αnd would not remedy the basic problem.” In conclusion, he threatened to resign his bishopric and “give the Apostolic See an itemized account of my burdensome situation.”⁵⁵

Throughout his episcopate, Bishop Garcia Diego seems to have elicited an ambivalent reaction from his people. Sir George Simpson noted that “all but the better classes were unfriendly to the bishop: the provincial authorities regarded him with an eye of jealousy as a creature and a partisan of the central government; and the mass of the people dreaded my symptom of the revival of a system which had, in their ^[p.45] Opinion, sacrificed the temporal interests of the colonists to the spiritual welfare of the aborigines.”⁵⁶

Several examples of the prelate’s image-problems could be cited, chief of which was a carriage accident which occurred on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. According to a priest companion, Father Doroteo Ambrís, “a bull enraged by a crowd of people on foot and on horseback, appeared coming toward the carriage. The crowd continued exciting the bull until it came close to the carriage. Then they gave up their pursuit and celebrated with loud noise and ferocity at which the bull struck the carriage, killing the mule that was pulling it.” Ambrís recalled that “the bishop shed abundant tears” on that occasion⁵⁷ and, though he apparently suffered bodily injury in the scuffle, the prelate was forced “to return to the mission on foot while men who saw what happened remained.”S⁸ Leandro Martinez, one of the prelate’s employees, testified that “no one knew whether the bull was chased outside intentionally or came out acci-dentally.”⁵⁹ In any event, “not a single person gave the least aid” to the injured bishop. The event so disturbed Father Narciso Durán that he “felt obliged to give a sermon from the pulpit to the people of Santa Barbara stating that he would be ashamed to have the story of such an incident happening to a bishop of California, allowed to be told outside the locale.”⁶⁰

The prelate’s health disintegrated noticeably in the early months of 1846. On April 20, he took the precaution of notifying the clergy, that he had appointed two vicars general to govern the diocese, should a vacancy occur, until more permanent provisions could be made by higher ecclesiastical authorities.⁶¹ Bishop Garcia Diego succumbed about midnight, April 30, 1846,⁶² probably from tuberculosis, aggravated by acute depression. “Divine Providence,” reported Anastasio Carrillo, “has taken from us a grand man, a just soul.”⁶³ The presidio cannon boomed every quarter hour to announce the bishop’s earthly departure. Funeral services, to which the entire populace of Santa Barbara was invited, were conducted on May 3. In accordance with the prelate’s wishes, he was buried in a specially prepared vault on the epistle side of the sanctuary.⁶⁴ On the marker of his tomb was placed the simple, but expressive inscription: “Hic jacet Il/mus. at Revmus. D.D. Fran. Garcia Diego y Moreno, Primus Epps. hwjus Diocesis California. Qui pridie Kalendas Maui, Anno MDCCCΧLVI ex hac vita migravit.”

That “the bishop was poor and that his episcopate was but a series of frustrations, no one can deny.”⁶⁵ Any objective appraisal of Francisco ^[p.46]

Clergy in the Diocese of Both Califor arias — ^{*[p.184]**[p.6]}

 ^[p.47] The artistic monwinent erected to mark the tomb of Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego adorns the wall on the Epistle-side of the sanctuary, in the church of Mission Santa Barbara. The facade is executed in wooden panelling painted to resemble marble, while the capitals of the smooth semi-engaged pillars are carved imitations of Ionic volutes. A pinkish color scheme is broken only by the light blue pediment and the imitation green marble surrounding the medallion.

Directly above the central marker is a circular reproduction of the bishop’s coat-of-arms. In the central portion of the episcopal shield is the crowned Madonna and Child, commonly known as the Mater Amabilis. This particular depiction, obviously based on the Refi’gio οf José Alzibaτ; clearly reflects the Raphaelean influence. A rather crudely-painted border encloses the field with the words “F. Franciscus Garcia Diego Prim. Epis. Califοrn.”

Atop the seal is the traditional episcopal hat from which descends the six tassels associated with residential bishops. In the apex of the facade is a “precious” mitre and, beneath that, an oversized chalice, symbolizing the priesthood.

The neo-classic influence is obvious in both the sculpture and architecture of the marker. One authority has noted the similarity of the monument to the entradas and niches designed by Francisco Eduardo Tresquerras. Some have erroneously conjectured that the actual vault extended into the wall. However, in November, 1912, the tomb was located exactly in the corner of the sanctuary, on the Epistle-side of the altar. According to the local chronicle, when the vault was opened, “the coffin was found standing in the middle of the grave leaving about 6 or 8 inches space on either side and more space on the ends; it was found covered with velvet of purple color and having some crosses, and the name of the Rt. Rev. Bishop on the cover being formed of brass or copper nails with large heads. The coffin was found in good, well preserved condition.” ^[p.48]

Garcia Diego’s relatively short tenure must necessarily touch upon the area’s need fοr episcopal status, in 1840. At least one authority believes that a more advanced type of ecclesial government should have come even earlier, “considering the huge territory, even though churches were few and the income nothing.” ⁶⁶ Generally speaking, however, most commentators regard the creation of the Diocese of Ambas Californias as premature, especially in view of the Mexican Government’s consistently obstreperous attitude regarding the only possible means of fiscal support, the Pious Fund.

Sir George Simpson reported that the inhabitants of Santa Barbara initially derived considerable encouragement from the appointment of a bishop, an attitude possibly based on the widely-accepted assumption that Garcia Diego had made some arrangement with the Mexican Government for, at least, the partial restoration of the missions.⁶⁷ Few other contemporary writers reflect such optimism, however. Augustias de la Guerra Ord, fοr example, doubted that the area needed a bishop. In any event, her biographer felt Garcia Diego “was unfitted to overcome the difficulties he faced without priests or money,” inasmuch as his only base of popular support was Santa Barbara and “rarely did the discouraged man leave his home.”⁶⁸ Eugene Duflot de Mofras shared that opinion and predicted, in 1841, that “the influence of the bishop...will not be widespread; his advanced age and his Mexican education will not permit him to take part in any spiritual conquests, nor augment the imposing foundations that are the glory of the Spanish Fathers.”⁶⁹

Apparently, the prelate did not enhance his position with the stubbor-ness of his personality. Edward Vischer reported hearing repeatedly about what he called the hypocritical character of the bishop, noting that “his conduct appeared to confirm that description.”⁷° An equally unimpressed, but openly antagonistic, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo classified Garcia Diego among those “prelates who suffered from an excess of silly pride.” ⁷¹ Another even more prejudiced observer recalled that “the bishop rules triumphant, and the wretched priest-ridden dupes would lick the very dirt from off his shoes were he but to will it.” ⁷² Obviously the ill feelings harbored by the paisanos, or Californians, fοr Mexican immigrants explains much of the personal antipathy for Garcia Diego. The bishop himself would, doubtless, have fared better if his cradle had stood in Spain rather than in Mexico.

Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno gives every indication of having been “a very humble and pious man, unworldly, unselfish and well versed ^[p.50] in the ecclesiastical disciplines.”⁷³ While he was not the strong character that the stormy times desperately called for, “it is doubtful if any man could have been a great leader in the troublous times of Bishop [Garcia] Diego’s episcopacy.”⁷⁴ Although chronologically the first Bishop of California, it remained the challenge of his successors to set the scene for a new culture. For his part, the bishop was destined, like his father Saint Francis of Assisi, to taste the stigma of the anticlericalism that pervaded the turbulent, revolutionary Mexico. “He suffered not unto blood, but his natural death was hastened by the unfulfilled promises and greedy chicanery of the men who governed California in the name of ‘God and Liberty’ .”7

NOTES TO THE TEXT

¹AALA, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.FM., Pnstorwl Letter, Mexico City, October 28, 1840.

²ΑΑLΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Departmental Assembly, Mexico City, November 30, 1840.

³ΑΑΙΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.Μ. to Minister of Interior, np., July 16, 1841. What sentiments there may have been for allowing the Jesuits to return quickly evaporated with the restoration of the Santa Ana regime. See Patrick Joseph Foote, S.J., Soria’ Historical Notes of Men ami EVerits That Led Up to the Retan i of the Jesiuts to Cυlifòrnm (San Francisco, n.d.), Pp. 4-5.

⁴Fοr some biographical information on the prelate’s niece, see Thomas F. Prendergast, For gotten Piσneerc. Irish Lenders in Eυrl’ c’alifòr n’’, (San Francisco 1942), p. 43. Also in the bishop’s company were Fathers Francisco Sanchez and Miguel Murs from Zacatecas; six seminarians: Subdeacon José Miguel Gόιnez; Antonio Jiménez, José Maria Rosales and Doroteo Ambrιs and two younger boys, Alejo Salmόn and Leandro Martinez; and an elderly companion for the prelate’s niece.

See William Hughes, “Coming Catholic Anniversary,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1915.

⁶Jοhn Gilinary Shea, The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States (New York 1886), p. 170.

⁷Αlbert R. Bandini, op. cit., 263.

⁸Quοted in Gerald J. Geary, The Secularization of the Califrnin Missioiis (18101846) (Washington, 1934), p. 180.

⁹ΑΑLΑ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Juan Alvarado, Santa Barbara, April 25, 1842.

¹⁰Μaynard J. Geiger. O.F.M., Mission Santa Barbara 1782-1965 (Santa Barbara, 1965), _p. 120. ^{[p.51] 11}AALA, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Juan Alvarado, Santa Barbara, April 25, 1842.

¹²ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.i., Pastoral Letter, Santa Barbara, February 4, 1842.

13ÁALÁ_, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Antonio Aguirre, Santa Barbara, May 5, 1842. Fora further insight into the prelate’s problems, see Francis J. Weber, “Francisco Garcia Diego and Santa Barbara Mission” XYXÉÉÉ Notifias (Winter, 1987), 75-85.

¹⁴Álfred Robinson, Life in California (Oakland, 1947), _p. 124.

¹⁵ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, Ï.F.M. to Juan Alvarado, Santa Barbara, May 6, 1842.

¹⁶See Francis J. Weber, “The United States Versus Mexico: The Final Settlement of the Pious Fund of the Californias,” Southern California Quarterly LI (June, 1969), 97-152.

¹⁷ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Priests, Santa Barbara, January 20, 1843.

¹⁸ÁALÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego O.F.M. to Lucas Álamün, Santa Barbara, September 12, 1843.

¹⁹ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Minister of Exterior Relations, Santa Barbara, September 9, 1843.

²⁰ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.i. to Manuel Micheltorena, Santa Barbara, June 8, 1844.

²¹ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Manuel Micheltorena, n.p., September 5, 1844.

²²ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM., tu Ignacio Rainirez de Arrellano, O.P., Santa Barbara, December 4, 1842 and Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Gabriel González, O.P., Santa Barbara, August 16, 1843.

²³ÁALÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Zacatecan friars, Santa Barbara, Ëugust 23, 1842.

²⁴ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Zacatecan friars, Santa Inés, September 10, 1842.

²éMiguel Gümez subsequently returned to his native Mexico where he succumbed in 1856.

²⁶For a sketch of the four year inter-regnum that actually occurred after the prelate’s death, see Francis J. Weber, Catholic Footprints in Californiaa  (Newhall, 1970), Pp. 199-200.

²⁷ÁALÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, Ï.F.M. to Minister of Economic Affairs and Public Instruction, Santa Barbara, October 27, 1843.

²⁸ÁALA, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to Manuel Micheltorena, n.p. September 6, 1844.

²⁹ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM. to Guardian, Santa Barbara, December 15, 1843.

³ÐÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.F.M. to José Lorenzo Quijas, Santa Barbara, ^[p.52] December 15, 1843.

³¹ÁÁLÁ, Francisco García Diego, Ï.F.M. to Lorenzo Quijas, O.F.M., Santa Barbara, December 19, 1843.

³²Álpheus Felch, Lands of the Catholic Church. Opinion of the Board Confrrwnéng the Claim (San Francisco, 1855), p. 2.

³³ÁÁLÁ, Francisco García Diego, O.F.M. to Manuel Micheltorena, Santa Barbara, February 27, 1844.

³⁴Francis J. Weber, A Bibliophilic Odyssey (Los Angeles, 1969), p. 13.

³⁵Êurt Baer, The Treasures of Mission Santa Ines (Fresno, 1956), p. 93. This building is not to be confused with that later erected for the college some distance away, at San Isidro, which functioned until 1882.

³⁶ÁÁLÁ, Francisco García Diego, O.F.M. to Manuel Micheltorena, Santa Barbara, May 4, 1844.

³⁷ÁÁLÁ, Francisco García Diego, O.F.M. to José Maria Híjar, n.p., August 8, 1845.

³⁸Finbar Kenneally, O.F.M., The Catholic Seminaries of California As Educational Institutions, 1840-1850 (Toronto, 1956), p. 6. The first students to complete their sacerdotal training at Santa Inés, Fathers Prudencio Santillan, José de los Santos and Doroteo Ambris were ordained, on January 1, 1846.

³⁹Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., quoted in Francis J. Weber, Á Guide to Saint John’s Semmnaey (Los Angeles, 1966), p. 6.

⁴⁰ÁÁLÁ, Francisco García Diego, O.F.M. Pastoral Letter, Santa Clara, January 4, 1843. Named as secondary patrons were Saints Francis of Assisi and Francis de Sales.

⁴¹Francis J. Weber, The United States Versus Mexico: The Final Settlement of the Pious Fund (Los Angeles, 1969), Pp. 54-55.

⁴²Laws of Mexico Relating to the Pious Fund (The Hague, 1902), p. 7.

⁴³Letter of the Mexican Legation at Rome to the Holy See, Dated April 6, 1840, and Affidavit of the Most Reverend Patrick William Riordan. The Case of the Pious Fund of the Californias (n.p., n.d.), p. 3.

⁴⁴Francis J. Weber, A Biographical Sketch of Right Reverend Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, Ï.F.Ì., p. 20.

⁴⁵Juan Rodriguez de San Miguel, Documentos Relativos Al Piadoso Fondo de Misiones para Conversion y Civilization de las Numerosas Tribus Barbaras de la Antigua y Nueva California (Mexico, 1845), p. 8.

⁴⁶”Decreto por el que reasumii el gobierno lo administraczJn e inver siün del fondo piadoso de Califïrnias,” Extracts jl ïm Works Referred to in the “Brief History of the Pious Fund of California” Annexed to the Memorial, and in the Argument of Claimant’s Counsel (San Francisco, 1872), Pp. 66-67.

⁴⁷For the text of the decree, see Thaddeus Amat, C.M. and Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P., Comisiün Mixta Reclamaciones de Mexico y Los Estados-Unidos (Mexico, 1876), Pp. 258-261.

⁴⁸The exact sale price was estimated by Juan Rodriguez de San Miguel to be ^[p.53] $600,000 plus $1,075,182.25 owed by the government.

⁴⁹Ándrew F. Burke, “The Pious Fund,” Academy Scrapbook V (1959), 91.

⁵⁰L0715 of Mexico, Pp. 9-10.

⁵¹See Note 145, ante.

⁵²The sales resulting from this legislation were subsequently declared invalid by the United States government.

“A brief from acting President Jose Joaquin Herrera suspending the sale, issued on November 4, 1845, was never honored in California.

⁵⁴ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, O.RÉ, to Pio Pico, Santa Barbara, July 4, 1845.

55ÁÁL,Á, Francisco Garcia Diego, OEM. to José Maria Hijar, n.p., August 8, 1845.

⁵⁶Narrative of a Journey Round the World (London, 1847), I. 388.

S⁷Sérittééôe Originali Referite Nelle Congregazione Generali. I Parte. 1860. Vol. 985. Pp. 16-166.

⁵⁸Thaddeus Amat, C.M., Scritture..., Pp. 405-414.

⁵⁹Quoted in Maynard J. Geiger, O.EM., Mission Santa Barbara, ì. 129. ⁶⁰Scrittéére..., Pp. 209-212.

⁶¹ÁÁLÁ, Francisco Garcia Diego, Ï.F.M. to Clergy of the Diocese of Both Californias, Santa Barbara, April 20, 1846.

⁶²Êurt Baer, Painting and Sculpture at Mission Santa Barbara (Washington, 1955) ì. 72.

⁶³Quoted in Zephyrin Engelhardt, OEM., Santa Barbara Mission (San Francisco, 1923), p. 259.

⁶⁴See Francis J. Weber, “Monument to Bishop Á Paradox,” The Tidings, March 8, 1968. The prelate’s tomb was subsequently opened, several decades later. “The grave was found located exactly in the corner of the sanctuary on the epistle side of the altar, and being walled up with brick and stone on both sides and ends and being covered with redwood planks over which earth and gravel was spread about a foot in thickness. The coffin was found standing in the middle of the grave leaving about 6 or 8 inches space on each side and more space on the ends; it was found covered with velvet of purple color and having some crosses, and the name of the Rt. Rev. Bishop on the cover being formed of brass or copper nails with large heads. The coffin was found in good, well-preserved condition—ít was not opened—the walls of the grave were built higher of brick so as to reach the new concrete floor, a projection being left on the walls, wherever to put stone or marble slabs to cover the grave.” Cronica Franciscana Conventus FR Minorunr. S.P.N. Francisco Ad. S. Barbar um. Vol I, Pp. 210-211.

⁶⁵Maynard J. Geiger, OEM., Mission Santa Barbara, p. 131.

⁶GÌaynard J. Geiger, OEM., The Life and Times of Fray Junípera Serra, II, 344. ⁶⁷0ñ. cit., I, 338.

⁶⁸Franeis Price and William H. Ellison (Trans.), Occurrences 171 Hispanic California (Washington, 1956), ì. 87. ^{[p.54] 69}Ìarguerite Eger Wilbur (Trans.), Duflot de Mïfras’ Travels on the Pacific Coast

(Santa Ana, 1937), I, 140.

⁷⁰Quïted in Erwin Gustav Gudde, “Ådùárd Víscher’s First Visit to California,”

California Historical Society Quarterly XIX (September, 1940), 201.

⁷¹Quïted by John B. lcGloin, S.J., California’s First Archbishop (New York,

1966), p. 362.

⁷²John C. Jones as quoted in William Å. North, Catholic Education in Southern

Cahfïrnia (Washington, 1936), P. 79.

⁷³Albert R. Bandini, op. cit., 266.

⁷`¹Ådward T Haskins, “California’s First Bishop,” Catholic Digest IV (August,

1940), 61.

⁷⁵Árthõr D. Spearman, Si., Our Lady Patroness of the Californßas (Santa Clara,

1966), p. 3. ^[p.55]

[6] The Interim Years 1846-1850

The decline of the missions, coupled with the Mexican government’s

refusal of financial support for the diocesan system of ecclesiastical administration, all but destroyed the infant Church in California. Three years before he died,’ Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego warned officialdom at Mexico City that its failure to meet the obligations voluntarily assumed in the original petition to the Holy See, would militate against the immediate appointment of his successor. California’s proto-bishop further observed that it was a policy of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation to demand certain iiiiniiiiai requirements prior to advancing a territory to episcopal status. Primarily because of governmental apathy, many of those qualifications had not been fulfilled in California. It was partly for this reason that in their official message to the Minister of Justice announcing the bishop’s death,² the diocesan administrators added the suggestion that intervention with the Holy See, at the Presidential level, might be opportune in prodding Rome to provide a new shepherd for the orphaned church.

The overall situation in California received a second blow, on June 1, when Fray Narciso Durán, one of the administrators, succumbed at Santa Barbara after a long and painful illness.³ It had been the late bishop’s wish that Fray Durán and Fray José Maria Gonzάlez Rúbiο jointly govern the vacant jurisdiction until word arrived from the Holy Father about a successor.⁴ Though Durán attempted to carry out Bishop Garcia Diego’s intentions, he soon found himself unequal to the task and gradually confided the active duties of the office to the younger Gonziilez Rúbiο. ^[p.56] Mexico City’s Metropolitan See was also vacant, as Archbishop Manuel Posada y Guardυυι ο had died the same day as his suffragan, Bishop Garcia Diego. On October 7, 1847, the Chapter officially designated Fray González Rúbiο Administrator for the Diocese of Both Califοrnias,⁵ an appointment he accepted on June 20, after concurrence of his own missionary college of Nuestrα Seί1οrα de Guadalupe.

The administrator was faced with numerous pressing anxieties about the Church’s status under the American government. On July 31, 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat issued a decree assuring the people of California that all churches would continue to exercise the same prerogatives as before.⁶

Fray José Jimeno, the religious superior of the few remaining Zacatecan friars, sent out a carefully worded pastoral, explaining the Church’s relationship with the new government.

It seems my duty to caution you that we must conduct ourselves with such religiousness, prudence, judgment and politeness that we give them not the least reason for distrusting us, much less our religion.?

Fray González Rúbiο welcomed the recognition afforded the Church by the new American government. The return of certain mission property to the diocese, perhaps the greatest boost of the decade, occurred when General Stephen Kearny handed over the missions of San Jos, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and San Juan Bautista on a provisional basis, until such a time as a judicial decision was made.

The undersigned is instructed by the President of the United States to respect and protect the religious institutions of California, to take care that the religious rights of the inhabitants are secured in the most ample manner, since the Constitution of the United States allows to every individual the privilege of worshipping his Creator in whatever manner his conscience may dictate.⁸

General Kearny also stated his intention of taking up “his duties with an ardent desire to promote, as far as able, the interests of the country and the welfare of its inhabitants.”

Fortunately the government’s favorable attitude was sustained. Governor Richard B. Mason of California dispatched an order regarding ecclesiastical marriage:

As their canonical laws prohibit any but their own priests from

uniting members of their Church in marriage, it is not proper that ^[p.57] we should break in upon these laws or customs... and particularly it is the wish of the President that when the country is subject to our laws the people may be as favorably disposed towards our government as possible. It is, therefore, good policy for us to abstain frοm doing anything that will have a tendency to give them an offense in matters wherein it may be thought their relations or Church privileges are encroached upon.`

The American government pursued its policy of allowing the Church to function without restrictions. After consulting with Fray González Rubio about the importance for Catholics adhering to their own ecclesial discipline, the governor ordered, that after July 13, 1847, his officers would discontinue witnessing marriage ceremonies “where either party was a member of the Catholic Church.” That ruling remained in force until the adoption of the Civil Code.

Contemporary accounts of those years revealed, that the state was Catholic at heart...”there are Catholics scattered in every town and village, up every mountain and valley” but “many have grown careless and indifferent...such is the field of our missionaries, a people whose conversion would be a great triumph to the Church, as well as an inestimable blessing to the recipient of the graces and consolations following their conversion.”¹⁰

The discovery of gold, on January 24, 1848, in the south fork of the American _River some nnéÉñs from Sacramento, provoked a host of new problems for the struggling Church of California. The subsequent influx of peoples from various parts of the nation and world demanded considerably more priests than the orphaned diocese could possibly provide. Immigrants advanced the population count an estimated 100,000 within the diocese, by the end of the following year. The vast migration was an event so stupendous as to outrank in point of numbers anything of its kind in the nation’s history, and to stand on equal footing with some of the great world movements of population. II

While a considerable number of the new arrivals, speculators, adventurers and the like were Catholics of every class and nationality, the few priests available to minister to them numbered only seven Franciscan and five secular clerics, all Spaniards or Mexicans, most of them unfamiliar and ill-at-ease with the English language. The indefatigable administrator intensified efforts to acquire additional priests to satisfy the needs for the English-speaking Catholics. Recalling that two Sacred Heart Fathers, Alexis Bachelot and Patrick Short frοm the Sandwich Islands, had come ^[p.58] to California during the early 1830s to escape persecution, Fray González Rúbío asked Bishop Louis Maigret fοr “two Fathers of the Society to help check the destruction of religion in California.”¹²

The bishop replied, in July of 1848, stating that he had no one then available, but that he would pass along the request to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome.ί³ In October, González Rúbio received another letter from Maigret notifying him that the Picpus Fathers, Stanislaus Lebret and John Holbein, were enroute to California.¹⁴ A subsequent letter to Archbishop Pierre Dominique Marcellin Raphael Bonamie explains his actions:

California is going to be an important country. Soon there will be over a million inhabitants. Gold mines have been discovered there.. The clergy of California have written to me that I would come to their rescue. The faithful have expressed the same wish. We have a great many Hawaiians over there.¹⁵

Fray González Rúbio gratefully welcomed the new clerical recruits and assigned them to posts in the diocese.

On May 30, 1848, González Rbio issued a pastoral letter stressing the dire need for “providing evangelical workers...who by their sound doctrine, edifying conduct and apostolic spirit, would bravely uphold in this Diocese of the Californias the noble edifice of the religion of Jesus Christ.” The administrator suggested that recruits might be obtained from European religious houses provided necessary funds could be obtained to bring them to California. Financial problems were a constant companion to the churchmen of the time and prompted González Rúbio to exclaim, that in California, the Church is entirely destitute of means; fοr even the sources of revenues which it formerly possessed in the mission system and the aid derived from the Pious Fund and similar sources had all disappeared.¹⁶ At the conclusion of the pastoral, González Rúbio called fοr public prayers on the approaching anniversary of Our Lady of Refuge, Patroness of the Diocese, mentioning the indulgences available to those fulfilling the usual conditions.

The desperate personnel shortage of the California Church prompted the administrator to write another pastoral letter on July 14, 1848, proclaiming:

With deep sorrow of heart we have seen that, since it was commanded in the Diocese to observe the universal law of tithes to the Church... many have shown themselves reluctant to satisfy this duty. This, my dear people, is a grievous wrong...and we cannot ^[p.59] remain silent any longer but are compelled to address you with the voice of a Father, who desires to instruct and move you to remember your religious obligations. You may indeed forfeit eternal life for not fulfilling this obligation; your country may forfeit divine worship; you may likewise be without assistance of a priest, in the hour of your death, who can absolve you from your sins. The desire that such an evil may not befall you is the only motivation that moves us to exhort you in the hope that you will listen kindly.¹⁷

For some years, a handful of French and Belgian priests had been looking after the employees of the Hudson Bay Company west of the Rocky Mountains. Among their number was Father Francis Norbert Blanchet, the future Archbishop of Oregon City. In later years, that prelate proved extremely sympathetic to the plight of the Church in California αnd, in 1848, allowed Father John Baptist Abraham Brouillet to care for the Oregonians scattered throughout the diocese. It was Father Brouillet who built the first Catholic church in the area later known as San Francisco and there he offered Holy Mass for the first time, on July 17, 1849.¹⁸

In August of 1848, Fray González Rúbio wrote the archbishop about the possibility of obtaining more priests. Blanchet replied, on September 14:

The reading of your letter has filled my soul with grief for the utter desolation in your diocese αnd the descriptions of the evils, anxieties, and perils that oppress your soul...I shall gladly write to the Propaganda Fide in France in your behalf.¹⁹

The archbishop graciously renewed his offer to send the Holy Oils and to assist González Rúbio in any other possible manner.

Fray González Rúbio reckoned that European religious orders provided the only practical answer to the dearth of priests in California. Alluding to the need for English-speaking priests especially, he appealed to Archbishop Pierre Bonamie, Superior General of the Picpus Fathers, in Paris:

Inasmuch as you are most desirous of widening your missionary circle αnd, as I hear, an abundance of men is trained for this purpose, do help us protect Divine Worship here lest we perish. Love of humanity and the charity of Christ prompts us to make this reguest.²⁰

The archbishop’s reply, which arrived in September of 1849, promised ^[p.60] several priests for assignment to the seminary, at Santa Inés. Bonamie also mentioned that he had “forwarded to the Holy Father the petition and His Holiness had replied to me that he is deeply afflicted at the sad conditions in which the California diocese finds itself, that He would be pleased to see me send missionaries to California; and that he was deliberating on the appointment of a bishop for that diocese.”²¹ Two additional Picpus Fathers, Flavian Fontaine and Anacletus Lestrade, arrived from Valparaiso, in September of the following year, bringing to seven the number of this exemplary religious community serving in the area.

A strange incident occurred, in the spring of 1849, when a certain Juan Bautista Brignole, self-styled Apostolic Legate, arrived in California and proceeded to exercise jurisdiction in the diocese. After careful and extensive investigations by Fray Gonzalez Rúbiο,²² and Secretary of State Henry W. Halleck, the “imposter” vanished from the California scene as mysteriously as he had appeared.

Fray Gonzalez Rúbio’s last serious appeal for clergyman was dated June 13, 1849:

From the day on which Divine Providence, in its inscrutable decrees, disposed that we should bear the heavy and delicate burden of administration in this diocese, we have ever kept before our eyes the chief and most important duty of providing you with evangelical laborers... Could we be true to the grave obligations that bind us to the sacred Diocese of California, by abandoning our solicitude to the chance course of events, until some easy and suitable occasion should present itself.. 23

All things considered, Fray Jos é Maria Gonzalez Rúbio “administered the diocese in a most difficult and trying period. Priests were few. The missions had been secularized, then rented and sold. The American occupation, the gold rush, and California’s admission to the Union followed in rapid succession.”²⁴

NOTES TO THE TEXT

¹I.e., on October 27, 1843.

--’AALA, Libro Borrador, Entry for May 1, 1846.

³For a biographical sketch of Father Dυυrάn (1776-1846), see Francis J. Weber,

Catholic Footprints in california (Newhall, 1970), Pp. 133-135.

`Santa Barbara Mission Archives (hereafter referred to as SEMA), Francisco

García Diego, O.F.M., to José Maria Gonzalez Rúbio, O.F.M., Santa Barbara, ^[p.61] April 19, 1846.

⁵ÁÁLÁ, Libro Borrador, Entry for February 4, 1848.

⁶Çõbert Howe Bancroft, History of California (Sán Francisco, 1886), V. 234-237.

⁷SÂÌÁ, José Jimenï, O.F.M., Circular Letter, Santa Inés, August 28, 1846.

⁸SBÌÁ, Stephen W. Kearney, Statement, Monterey, March 22, 1847.

⁹Hubert Howe Bancroft, op. cit., V, 566.

¹⁰Francis J. Weber, Catholic Footprints in California, p. 199.

¹¹Robert Glass Cleland, History of California: The American Period (New York,

1927), p. 232.

¹²Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., The Missions and Missionaries of California (San

Francisco, 1915), N, 612.

¹³SÂÌÁ, Louis Maigret to José Maria González Rtßbßï, O.F.M., Ilonolulu, July

9, 1848.

¹⁴SÂÌÁ, Louis Maigret to José Maria González Rúbio, O.F.M., Honolulu,

October 25, 1848.

¹⁵Reginald Yzendoorn, History of the Catholic Mission in the Hawaiian Islands

(Honolulu, 1927), ì. 187.

¹⁶SÂÌÁ, Jïsé Marla Gïnzález Rúbio, O.F.M., Pastoral Letter, Santa Barbara.

¹⁷For the full text of the pastoral, see Francis J. Weber (trans. and Ed.), “An

Appeal to Los Angeles,” The Pacific Historian XXÉ (Winter, 1977), 359-367.

¹⁸SÂÌÁ, Francis Norbert Blanchet, Decree, Wallarnet, November 15, 1848.

¹⁹SÂÌÁ, Francis Norbert Blanchet to José Maria González Rúbio, O.F.M.,

Wallamet.

²⁰SÂÌÁ, José Maria González Rúbio, O.F.M., to Pierre Dominique Marcellin

Raphael Bonamie, Santa Barbara, February, 1849.

²¹SÂÌÁ, Pierre Dominique Marcellin Raphael Bonamie to José Mario González

Rúbio, O.F.M., Paris, August 11, 1849.

22ÁÁ A, Libro Borrador, Entry for lay 28, 1849.

²³AÁLÁ, Libro Borrador, Entry for June 13, 1849.

²⁴Maynard J. Geiger, O.F.M., Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California 1769-

1848 (Sán Marino, 1969), ì. 115. ^[p.62]

[7] The “Almost” Bishop—Charles P. Montgomery

 A measure of the concern exhibited for the shepherdless Diocese of Both Californias can be gleaned from a cross-section of correspondence exchange with outside churches. Early in 1848, Edward H. Harrison asked a friend in Baltimore to inform Archbishop Samuel Eccleston that the 200 Catholics in San Francisco were badly in need of an English-speaking priest to look after their spiritual needs.l A similar plea was addressed to the Archbishop of Baltimore by Jonathan D. Stevenson, a prominent non-Catholic military official who, reported that the few priests in Southern California were either aged, ill, infirm or had “forfeited the respect of their parishioners” by their careless way of life.² Eccleston forwarded Stevenson’s letter to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, along with his own suggestions about prompt remedial action.³

A memorandum from James Hardie, an army lieutenant, described how California’s once prosperous Church beheld itself “at this moment without even the most necessary aliment, and seems to appeal in vain to her children fοr that support without which she must cease to exist.”⁴ Further evidence came to Eccleston’s attention six months later from Frederick Chatard, an officer in the United States Navy. The seaman explained that San Francisco’s religious complexion was composed of “a wild motley set of all nations & creeds” where “the Golden Calf alone is worshipped.” Of the thirteen priests, none was “suitable for the present population emigrating to Upper California.”⁵

Concern fοr the ecciesial plight of the Far West was shared by other members of the American hierarchy. When Bishop John Hughes of New ^[p.63] York solicited the views of Jοsé De la Guerra, an outstanding Santa Barbara layman,⁶ he was told that the area needed a Spanish-speaking prelate to coordinate and expand the work of four secular priests, four extern priests, a Dominican and seven Franciscans.⁷ Hughes had already proposed that the Holy See be appraised about “the importance of appointing one or more Bishops fοr that and other recently acquired portions of U.S. territory.”⁸

Late in 1848, Archbishop Eccleston received word that the discovery of gold in California made it even more necessary “to send to the country many enlightened and liberal priests and to appoint a bishop, or even two, at the earliest practicable moment.” The prelate was told that “anyone of education & personal dignity of character, appearing as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, no matter what his country, or his language, would be warmly received.”⁹ Another concerned bystander, Archbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet, wrote to Roman officials, in mid-1849, offering to accept the vacant Diocese of Both Californias as a suffragan to the metropolitan province of Oregon City.¹⁰ 

in their effort to provide for the orphaned California Church, the prelates comprising the Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore, at the suggestion of Cincinnati’s Bishop John Purcell, submitted a terna of episcopabili to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. The intervention, made in May, 1849, recommended the names of Fathers Charles P. Montgomery, Ο.Ρ.,¹¹ John Lainy and Thomas Grace, OP. Annexed to the proposal were cogent reasons why immediate action on behalf of Catholics along the Pacific Slope was necessary.

On December 21, 1849, the Prefect of Propaganda Fide, Alessandro Cardinal Barnabo, notified the Archbishop of Baltimore that Montgomery’s nomination to the newly designated Diocese of “Monterey” had been confirmed by Pope Pius IX, on the previous November 20.¹² When the papal bulls arrived at the premier see, on February 18, they were immediately forwarded to the bishop-elect, at Zanesville. The Holy Father informed the obviously surprised Dominican priest that his reputation “fοr moral uprightness, prudence, religious sentiment, piety, and proven learning” had impelled the American hierarchy to propose him as “pastor of the vacant episcopal Church of Monterey.”¹³

Montgomery’s reaction was totally unexpected. Disinclined as he was to exchange his pastorate, at Zanesville, for the larger one at Monterey, Montgomery informed Archbishop Eccleston about his wretched health, ^[p.64] asking the Baltimore prelate to notify the Holy Father that his removal to the West Coast “would very soon end my earthly existence.”¹⁴ The Zanesville pastor repeated his views to Bishop John Purcell, stating that “my health is such...as to render me totally unable to discharge the duties” of the Monterey episcïñate.¹⁵

Apparently, Father Montgomery’s decision was not publicly announced, for an Ohio newspaper announced:

We take great pleasure in transferring to our columns the following auspicious announcement of the election of Rt. Rev. Charles P. Montgomery, O.P., of Zanesville, as Bishop of Monterey. Mr. Montgomery is a native of Kentucky, of the Order of Saint Dominic and has been for many years an active and efficient missionary as well as an exemplary priest of this diocese. He will find many of his former parishioners in the Valley of Sacramento by whom his presence will be hailed with more joy than the discovery of a placer.¹⁶

As soon as Archbishop Samuel Eccieston realized that Montgomery’s attitude was irreversible, he dutifully returned the papal bulls to Naples, where Pope Pius IX was informed of the matter, in late April, 1850.

A final attempt by Purcell to dissuade Montgomery was hardly more successful. The Zanesville pastor replied that “time leaves me unmoved in the conviction, that under existing circumstances, it would be folly to...accept that responsible office.”¹⁷

NOTES TO THE TEXT

AELA, Edward H. Harrison té Francis Lucas, San Francisco, March I6, 1848. ²ÁÁLÁ, Jonathan D. Stevenson to Samuel Eccleston, Los Angeles, May I, 1848. ³Árchives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore (hereafter referred to as AÁÂ), Samuel Eccleston to Giacomo Cardinal Franzoni, Baltimore, September 4, 1848. ⁴ÁÁÂ, James Hardie Memorandum, San Francisco, November 23, 1848. For an excellent discussion of the complexities facing the American hierarchy about California, see Columba E. Halsey, Ï.S.Â., “The Life of Samuel Eceleston, Fifth Archbishop of Baltimore, 1801-1851,” Record& of the Arerican Catholic Historical Societe LXXVI (September, 1965), 150ff.

⁵AÁB, Frederick Chatard to Samuel Eccleston, San Francisco, November 29, 1848.

⁶For a brief biographical sketch of California’s El Gran Capitan, see Francis J. Weber, Readings in Calitoriéin Catholic Histoiy (Los Angeles, 1967), Pp. 167-168. ^{[p.65] 7}See Joseph Á. Thompson, Ï.F.M., El Gran Capitan. José De la Guerra (Los Angeles, 1961), Pp. 221-225.

BARB, John Hughes to Samuel Eccleston, New York, December 23, 1848. For another view of the problems, see Francis J. Weber (trans. and ed.), “A Report from California-1851,” U.S. Catholic Historian I (Fall, 1981), 133-140.

°AALA, Joseph W. Revere to Samuel Eccleston, New York, October 29, 1848.

10ÁÁÂ_, Francis Norbert Blanchet to Pius IX, Oregon City, June 10, 1849.

ttCharles Pius Montgomery, the youngest of the ten children of Charles and Mary Arm (Elder) Montgomery, was born on August 18, 1806, in Washington County, Kentucky. He was professed in the Order of Preachers, on August 23, 1822, and joined his older brother, Samuel, in the priesthood, on June 13, 1830. Except for the term he served as Provincial, Montgomery spent most of his ministry at Saint Thomas Church, in Zanesville, Ohio.

¹²ÁÁLÁ, Alessandro Barnabo to Samuel Eccleston, Rome, December 21, 1849, transcript from the Baltimore Cathedral Archives.

¹³Donald C. Shearer, O.F.iVI. Cap. (ed.), Pontif7cia Americana. A Documentñuy Historyy of the Catholic Church in the United States (Washington, 1933), Pp. 251252.

¹`Ìontgïmery suffered from a host of maladies including an irregular heartbeat and chronic bronchitis.

¹⁵ÁÁLÁ, Charles P. Montgomery, O.P. to John Purcell, Zanesville, March 16, 1850, transcript from the Archives of the University of Notre Dame.

¹⁶Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph, March 9, 1850.

¹⁷ÁÁLÁ, Charles P. Montgomery, O.P., to John Purcell, Zanesville, March 31, 1850, transcript from die Archives of the U_ni_versity _of Notre Dame. Father Montgomery remained at his post, in Zanesville, until Easter, 1860, when he was found dead in bed. ^[p.66]

[8] Harbinger of New Era — Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P.

A marble plaque, attached to the wall of a second-story balcony, at 9 Rambla del Paseo, in the ancient Catalan town of Vich,¹ testifies that

En esta Casa nαciό El Dia 13 de Julio de 1814 El Excmo. y Rdmo. Fr: José S. Alamany y Conill, Obispo de Monterrey y primer Arzobispo de San Francisco de California. Falleciό en Valencia el 14 de Abril de 1888. La Ciudad de Vich de dedica esta lapida en recuerdo’le sumeritisinia labor misional, honor de la ciudad y de su diocesis.

Joseph Sadoc Alemany, the third youngster² of Antonio Ahmany³ and Micaela de los Santos Conill, was baptized on the day of his birth by Father Salvador Armengol, a priest attached to Vich’s historic cathedral. Following the local custom, Joseph was confirmed the following April 12, in the private oratory of the episcopal palace by Bishop Francisco de Vegan y lola.⁴

Joseph’s wish to study for the priesthood can be traced to the age of ten, when he formally became a clerical candidate in Vich’s diocesan seminary. There he spent three years of intensive secondary work prior to moving on to the institute staffed by the Padres Escolapios at Moya, for advanced courses in the humanities.

Upon completing his preliminary studies, Joseph decided to enter religious life. He submitted a petition to the Aragon Province of the Order of Preachers and in mid-September, 1830, entered Vich’s Priory of Santo Domingo.⁵ After the prescribed probationary year, Joseph made solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as a Dominican, on September 23, 1831. Shortly thereafter, Joseph, now also known as “Sadoc,” after a thirteenth-century Polish martyr, journeyed to Tremp’s ^[p.67] Priory of San Jaime de Pallars, fοr philosophical studies. So proficient had Alemany become by the time the course was completed that he was chosen to publicly defend his thesis.

The fledgling philosopher was then sent to Gerona, where he initiated his theological training at the Priory of Our Lady’s Annunciation. His studies were interrupted a year later, when the government’s secularization laws forced the closing of all religious houses in Spain. Alemany spent the following months at home and, in August, 1836, joined a group of confreres invited by Father Tommasso Jacinto Cipolleti, the Dominican Master General, to complete their priestly preparation at Viterbo’s Priory at Santa Maria dei Gradi.

Alemany’s native ability and scholarly accomplishments enabled him to complete his studies the following spring, eighteen months before reaching the canonical age for ordination. His superiors obtained the necessary dispensation and Joseph Sadoc was advanced to the priesthood, by Bishop Gaspar Bernardo Pianetti, on March 11, 1837, at Viterho’s Cathedral of San Lorenzo.

Father Alemany pursued his theological training until mid-1839, when he received a formal assignment to Rome’s Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The youthful Dominican performed the usual parochial duties, while taking advanced courses at the nearby urban college of Propaganda Fide.

Though Alemany had previously volunteered fοr missionary work in the Philippines, it was decided that his talents could be better utilized on the priestless frontier of Tennessee, in far-away America, an area recently entrusted to another Dominican, Bishop Richard Pius Miles. After receiving the lectorate in theology, on January 24, 1840, Father lemony was ready to set out fοr his apostolate in the United States. Along with two companions, the Catalan-born priest departed from Leghorn, on February 12, 1840. It was a rough voyage and the youthful cleric recorded that “during almost all the trip, we had occasion to admire the workings of the Divine Providence.”⁶

Fifty days out of port, the storm-ravaged ship arrived in New York, on April 2. The three priests hastily proceeded to Philadelphia by train. Then on to Pittsburgh, reaching Cincinnati on Holy Thursday. Shortly after Holy Week, the trio jorneyed to Somerset’s Saint Joseph’s Priory, the center of Dominican activities in that part of the nation.

Alemany must have found the transition from his earlier surroundings challenging. A fellow Dominican testified that “the hardships of the priests on the missions are very great. They can never count on sleeping ^[p.68] in the convent. Many times it happens that one arrives tired out and thinking that he can rest, when he must leave at once on horseback and go where he is called without stopping through the rain and snow.” ⁷

In August, Father Alernany took up duties at the parish church in Zanesville, where he occupied himself with the normal routines of the active ministry. The young priest “offered Mass in private homes and there administered the sacraments and thus succeeded in bringing his official and personal character to bear where it counted most—and it would seem no exaggeration to suppose that these were among the happiest days of the friar who, wiry and still less than thirty years of age, combined bodily strength with an apostolic vigor.”⁸ Alemany’s admiration for the American constitutional form of government inspired him to apply for citizenship papers, on April 15, 1841. After the customary waiting period, he was naturalized.

A challenging interlude to his work in Ohio cane during the final months of 1842, when Father Charles Pius Montgomery, the Dominican Provincial, sent Alemany to Cuba to solicit funds for an envisioned new church at Somerset. Despite a serious bout with yellow fever and a host of complications from governmental officials, Father Alemany returned to the United States with almost $700, along with an assortment of furnishings for the contemplated edifice.

At the request of Bishop Richard Pius Miles, Father Alemany journeyed to Nashville, in 1842, fοr a three-year residency at the Cathedral of the Holy Rosary. One of his assignments fοr the Dominican prelate was that of drafting the first relatio of Catholic activities in Tennessee fοr the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. Fαther Alernany also served briefly as rector of the minuscule diocesan seminary and one chronicler states that “no stricter or more conscientious man could have been selected for the place.”⁹ In the summer of 1845, Father Alemany went to Memphis, as curate at Saint Peter’s Church. During his two years there, Alemany administered to Catholics scattered throughout the western part of the state.

At the Dominican provincial chapter, in the fall of 1847, Father Alemany was elected Master of Novices fοr Saint Rose’s Priory, in Kentucky. He was hardly ensconced in that post when, on May 2, 1848, the Master General, Fαther Angelus Ancarani, appointed Alemany Provincial or major superior of Saint Joseph’s Province, a designation that necessitated his returning to Somerset.

The Catalan friar’s brief tenure as provincial was a stormy one, insofar as his parochial experience aligned him with those favoring a pragmatic ^[p.69] interpretation of the apostolate for the Order of Preachers in the United States, a viewpoint not shared by many more conventual-minded confreres. The official Dominican historian states that the Alemany selected for provincial “was a man they knew to be a good religious; a man whose intellectual formation in the order has been solid, and whose own aptitude for that formation had been such that he had been awarded the Lectorate in Sacred Theology.” In fact, however, the same authority believes that the appointee “proved himself a different sort entirely.”¹⁰ So diverse was the reaction to certain of Alemany’s efforts to “adapt” the life-style in the Order of Preachers to the expediency of the American apostolate, that he was severely criticized by his own consultors who came perilously close to removing him from office.

Nonetheless, his accomplishments recorded during eighteen months in office are impressive. Spiritually, he effected a revival of the preaching apostolate throughout the province. He also rekindled the Order’s traditional dedication to the Rosary, restoring that Marian devotion t0 itS place of eminence at the parish level and elsewhere. On the material side, Father Alemany contracted fora new college building at Saint Joseph’s, and saw a completion of the church at Somerset. His program for expansion, though modest by present standards, was the most ambitious so far launched in the American province.

Alernany tirelessly toured the scattered Dominican foundations, promoting new approaches and fresh techniques in the geographically diverse missionary stations. He attended the Seventh Provincial Council at Baltimore in 1849, where he came to know most of the prelates occupying residential bishoprics in the United States. The assembled prelates were understandably impressed by the efficient manner in which the youthful Dominican provincial went about his exacting tasks. It was during that conciliar gathering that Alemany witnessed the nomination of his good friend and former superior, Father Charles Pius Montgomery, for the vacant Bishopric of Both Californias,¹¹ a choice in which Alemany happily concurred.

Though somewhat of a controversial personality during his short tenure as provincial, “it is universally admitted that vain would have been the search to find another clergyman in the United States better adapted or more competent for the new see in the far west than Alemany.”¹²

The designs of Divine Providence in human affairs are frequently most apparent in retrospect. It is interesting to speculate on the number of events that could have changed the entire history of California if, for example, the area had not become part of the United States. Even among ^[p.70] the endless possibilities, there is little doubt that Joseph Sadoc Alemany embodied that happy combination of qualities which eminently qualified him for the Bishopric of Monterey, an eventuality he hardly envisioned when Father Charles Montgomery was nominated in 1849. As a Spaniard, one fully versed in the cultural milieu which motivated the foundation of the Church in California, Alemany would have little dim-culty in gaining the respect, confidence and affection of the Spanish and Mexican populace. Yet his years in America had further prepared him for administering the temporal affairs of the Church in an area undergoing tremendous changes as a result of the overwhelming population influx from every class and nation.

The adamant refusal of the ailing Montgomery to assume the California episcopate greatly disappointed the American hierarchy. When it became obvious that he would not reconsider, the prelates submitted a wholly new teτn , together with a plea for a quick response to alleviate the desperate straits of the long vacated see. Bishop Richard Pius Miles told a correspondent that he would “take the liberty to propose the names of the Very Rev. Joseph Alemany, O.Ρ., who stands second on the list for Santa Fe, and who is sufficiently known for his piety and his learning to render any recommendation on my part unnecessary .„“¹³ Archbishop Eccleston was equally anxious to have the episcopal seat at Monterey filled. He wrote to Cincinnati’s Purcell:

Τhc Rev. C.P. ΈΜοntgυ~l’lery having, on āUCUiinί if 111 health, declined his appointment to the See of Monterey, I have, with such consultation as was accessible, presented to the Holy See the names of three Priests whom the Fathers of the last P. Council had recommended as worthy of being elevated to the Episcopacy: 1st, V. Rev. Joseph Alemany, O.P.; 2nd, V. Rev. Edward Purcell; 3rd, Rev. Thomas Grace, O.P.¹⁴

Meanwhile, in March, 1850, Fathers Alemany and Francis Vilarrasa¹⁵ had set out for Europe to attend a General Chapter of the Dominicans, which had been called at Naples to elect a new Master General. Unaware of the decision made by the American hierarchy, Father lemony arrived in Spain for the first visit to his homeland since leaving for the New World, in 1840. After a short reunion with relatives and acquaintances, in Barcelona and Vich, he and his traveling companion proceeded on to Rome, for observance of the Holy Year. The chapter, scheduled to convene on the eve of Pentecost, was cancelled at the request of Pope Pius IY.^{16  [p.72]} Alemany soon discovered that he had not made the trip to Italy in vain, for on May 31, by the papal brief, Apostolatns Officiõõmmm, he was named Bishop of Monterey.¹⁷ The startled Dominican friar learned of the pontiffs decision on June 11, during a visit with Giacomo Cardinal Franzoni, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide.¹⁸ Alemany quickly sought out his confessor, then the Dominican Vicar General, Father Jerome Gigli, who authorized him “to make a humble and modest resignation if that is agreeable with the Pope.”¹⁹

Fully determined to avoid the appointment, the bishop-designate was received at the Vatican, by Pope Pius ΙΧ, on June 16. AJemany noted in his diary that “before allowing me to refuse, he says that it is necessary that I go to Monterey. You must go to California; there is no alternative. Where others are drawn by gold, you must go to carry the cross. God will assist you.” Father Alernany assured the pontiff that he was not opposed to the will of God. At the same time, he pointed out his lack of qualifications for the bishopric and asked permission to refuse the nomination. The pope replied:

I appreciate the prudence which prompts your reply but it is fοr me to judge in this matter. According to Saint Thomas, prudence and obedience are equally necessary virtues and the wish of Christ’s Vicar is the will of God for you. Do not ponder over what to say or do fοr the Lord will direct you at the proper time.²⁰

After exhausting efforts to sidestep the appointment, Alemany began his spiritual preparations for assuming the burdens of the bishopric. The episcopal ordination was scheduled fοr June 30, in Rome’s Church of San Carlos al Corso, with Cardinal Franzoni as the principal consecrator.2 Ι

The ensuing days were given over to visiting various curial cardinals and prelates, most of whom held positions on the board of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. One writer states that “it is obvious that the discussion must have centered around the information which had reached their Eminences concerning the sad state of the orphaned Catholicism in California.”²²

On July 6, the newly elevated Bishop of Monterey returned to the Vatican fοr an audience with Pope Pius ΙΧ,²³ during which Alemany outlined certain of the hastily-sketched plans he hoped to inaugurate for the Church in California. The genial Pio Nono assured the prelate of his prayers and support fοr the difficult years ahead.

Bishop Alemany’s original plans for returning to America through ^[p.73] Spain became impossible, fοr Roman officials wanted him to start as soon as possible for California. The young prelate wrote his aged mother, to whom he confided some of his intimate thoughts and observations on the tremendous burden of the episcopate:

If I were able, I would come to Vich to see you again and invite you to become the housekeeper of the Bishop from the Pyrenees; but I do not believe you would have the courage to make a trip equivalent to four thousand walking hours. If Michael were willing to go with me and to be pastor in California, I would pass there to take him. Do not bother sending me congratulations. I beg you all to recommend me to God, so that Our Lord who makes me walk upright in this world, will not let me walk upside down in the next. God Bless us 911.²⁴

After appealing fοr clerical and religious personnel, resources and prayers for his far-away diocese, Bishop Alemany left the Eternal City fοr Civita Vecchia, on July ^30.25 Ile journeyed to Lyons and the headquarters for the Societe de la Propagation de la Foi,²⁶ where, he recorded in his diary,

The secretary of Propagation de la Foi visits me and pays 10,000 francs fοr 1849 and promises an additional sum next March for 1850. He requests me to establish the society in California and says Ι can retain the proceeds provided an accounting is made to the Paris office. Write to Bishop Miles²⁷ about recent happenings. A good Third Order Dominican sister of Paris offers to come to my diocese as does her superior provided she can live in a convent of the Second Order. Both are good teachers. Promise to have breakfast with the nuns on the 27th at 9 a.m.²⁸

In Paris he called on the Superior General of the Sisters of Charity, Father Jean Baptiste Etienne, C.M., from whom he requested a foundation of the Daughters in Monterey. He succeeded in recruiting three Dominican English-speaking Sisters before leaving for London and Ireland, where he pleaded fοr sacerdotal recruits to care fοr the Gold Rush emigrants in California. Father Eugene O’Connell, a professor at All Hallows College, and several seminarians volunteered, thus inaugurating that welcome influx of Irish clergy to the Pacific Coast which continues to this day.

It was while visiting the Emerald Isle that Bishop Alenany wrote to Father Peter Anderson,²⁹ a fellow Dominican who had gone to ^[p.74] California earlier that same year:

Things have turned out so that I have been obliged to wear the heavy mitre put off by Father Montgomery. The Pope told me that God would help me. I trust He will. I had to be consecrated on the 30th of June. Some slight sickness and also some affairs made me remain in Rome a little longer than I expected. I also remained a little in Lyons to obtain some assistance fοr our Mission in California. Now that the good Providence of God has given me the means of going to my mission, and of enabling others to go there, I am ready to leave for New York αnd Monterey, after making some arrangements in or near Dublin, by which I shall be able to obtain, now or afterwards, some good missionaries, without whom I could not organize many congregations.³⁰

Though understandably anxious to set out fοr the United States, it was September 11 before the bishop, Father Vilarrasa αnd the three Dominican sisters finally left Liverpool aboard the Columbus. After a relatively uneventful voyage, the entourage arrived in New York just a month later. They then traveled immediately to Ohio, where the bishop concluded his business as Dominican provincial. Upon his return to New York, Alemany consulted with Bishop John Hughes and Archbishop Samuel Eccleston of Baltimore about some of the more pressing problems facing the Church in California.

On October 27, the party re-assembled in New York, αnd the following day they sailed on the Crescent City for the Isthmus of Panama. They arrived at Chagres and, according to Vilarrasas account, they proceeded almost immediately in a smaller boat, operated by three Indians. That short sojourn entailed three and a half days of uncomfortable traveling. They passed the nights either in Indian huts or in primitive inns. On November 10, they arrived at Las Cruces and, on the next day, departed on muleback fοr Panama City, reaching there on November 12. They were housed at the local seminary, and during their short stay, Father Vilarrasa offered Holy Mass, at which Alemany preached. On Saturday, November 16, the group resumed their trip aboard a steamer which arrived at Acapulco on November 24. The ship sailed through the Golden Gate with its ninety-five passengers on the night of Friday, December 6, 1850,³¹ landing on the next day, the seventh of December. The Dominican prelate offered Holy Mass at Saint Francis Church αnd two days later, presented his official documents of canonical status to the Very Reverend Anthony Langlois, the ranking ecclesiastic in the Bay Area. ^[p.75] A formal program of welcome was hastily scheduled for the 10th, at which John A. McGlynn expressed the sentiments of the Catholic populace towards their newly arrived shepherd. After pointing out the prelate’s more obvious talents, McGlynn noted how much appreciated were Alemany’s efforts “to secure for us the services of a zealous and devoted Priesthood from Spain, France, Ireland and the United States.” The local Catholic community was equally grateful for the measures taken “to enlist in the cause of religion here the Sisters of Charity—those self-sacrificing handmaids of Christ, who are everywhere found ministering angels to suffering humanity.”³²

The bishop’s response to this most cordial and learned greeting was equally erudite and sincere. He replied in substance:

A long journey through rough, inhospitable countries, a sea voyage through unfriendly, boisterous and constantly threatening waves, naturally covers with gloom the heart of the traveller; but on the other hand if befriended by nature, he finds some relief from the unavoidable tediousness and fatigue of the way. Such is the feeling experienced by a pastor, whose lot is cast in a good flock, with this difference, that while the frowning elements may finally overwhelm the vessel, the ship that is piloted by Hirn who commands the winds and the sea cannot be wrecked. Human nature may be depressed by a fear imagining Providence to look on unconcerned; but it will be emboldened by the inspirations of faith to dispel all gloomy apprehensions. Impious and designing men may threaten, imprison, or exile a pastor; but they cannot subvert the authority of His church, which is the work of the hands of the Almighty, immortal like its author.

Your religious feelings, on this occasion, permit nothing but happy prospects to the clergy of California. As long as the faithful will appreciate the worth of religion, and will receive its divine influences, so long can their spiritual prosperity be guaranteed. This is one of the principal reasons why our church in the United States has attained in a few years a growth like that which San Francisco has made in a few months. Two or three years ago, the insignificant town of San Francisco could scarcely meet the eye of the student of geography; today the name of this large and important city resounds throughout the world. About a half a century ago, one bishop, a few priests and some thousand Catholics formed our Church in the United States; it now probably numbers over ^[p.77] First California Synod

1ST PROPOSITION It seems expedient in this diocese to exempt the faithful from the obligation of paying material tithes or fruits, and to substitute offerings sufficient for the support of the clergy and the maintenance of worship.

2ND PROPOSITION However, it is fitting to oblige the faithful to give, in place of the tithes, a part equal to one-fifth of the amount assigned by the Civil Government.

3RD PROPOSITION It is necessary that each pastor give a financial accounting to the ordinary in order that the Bishop might dispose of the surplus according to his discretion for the support of other pastors as well as outside necessities of worship.

The faithful are exhorted to pay tithes, which they owe, so that the diocesan debts can be paid by the Bishop. When the tithes are paid,

a fourth part is to be given to the Bishop, and from the other three parts, half will accrue to the Pastor and the other half to the church.

CLANDESTINE MARRIAGES:

1ST PROPOSITION The decrees of the Council of Trent are hereby promulgated in this diocese.

2ND PROPOSITION Clandestine marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics are not valid. The same is to be said of marriages (clandestine) between Catholics.

3RD PROPOSITION It is expedient to petition the Roman Pontiff that the privilege given to Belgium and Canada be extended to this diocese, namely that the clandestine marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics in this diocese be declared valid.

(Acts of the Ecclesiastical Conference of the 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd of the month of March, held in the city of San Francisco 1852 A. D. The president being The Most Reverend and Illustrious Joseph Alemany, Bishop of Monterey, the vice-president Reverend Father Gonzales Rubio, the Vicar General.)

Wednesday, August 6, 1854. ^[p.78] two millions of Catholics, more than a thousand clergymen, an equal number of churches, and a hierarchy of twenty-five Bishops and six Archbishops. The faithful were always ready to gladden the heart of the wandering missionary priest; they were his aid, received the instructions of his ministry, and God blessed them.³³

At the conclusions of the ceremony, Bishop Alemany was presented with $1,000 in gold dust, which was intended for his personal use in acquiring habitable quarters in the diocese.³⁴

On December 14, the bishop and Father Anthony Delmas left San Francisco in a small coastwise vessel for the southland, there to meet with the Vicar Capitular, Father José Maria González Rúbio. The ship anchored at San Pedro and the bishop set out fïr Santa Barbara, stopping at a host of Catholic settlements along the way.³⁵ He reached the historic mission early on Christmas morning, and after offering Holy Mass there, preached an eloquent sermon. In the following days, said Alemany, “the old Franciscan Missionaries explained to me that the tracts of mission lands were, as they believed, the real property of the Indians.”³⁶

During his stay in Santa Barbara, Bishop Alemany conferred at length with the well-informed González Rýíbio on a host of items pertaining to the future of the Church in California. Among other matters discussed were the contents of the pastoral letter which the bishop had drafted as his first message to those over whom he had been placed as shepherd by the Holy Father. The preeminence given by the bishop to spiritual considerations is obvious from his proto-pastoral, which he released at Santa Barbara during the early weeks of 1851. Exhorting the faithful to walk worthily of their exalted vocation, the prelate called the Catholics in California to a greater “purity of morals,” pointing out that many souls “suffer shipwreck” on the “pleasures of this life.” While demanding the greatest charity toward nonbelievers, Alemany gently alluded to the need fïr keeping “sacred the holy deposit of faith,” especially in view of “the many discordant religious teachers of our times, who falsely supposing our Church divorced from Christ, take upon themselves the right of framing new Churches and new creeds.”³⁷

The editors of the New York Freemen’s JouAna/ and CàthïÉic Register, commenting on the pastoral, noted that “it is cheering and glorious to hear this true successor of the Apostles thus lifting his voice against the three evils that intelligent travelers have told us are threatening California society with utter ruin—forgetfulness of old principles and ^[p.79] practices, an insatiable thirst for gold, and a most profligate unchasti ty. “38

Bishop Alemany arrived back at Monterey, the official seat of his diocese, on January 28. He took up residence temporarily with the González family until accommodations could be readied in a frame house near the Presidio Chapel of Sαn Carlos, which was to serve as the Cathedral Church for the Diocese of Monterey.

NOTES TO THE TEXT

‘The Alamany home is still owned and utilized by the prelate’s relatives. This writer first visited Vich, on September 7, 1962, and there was entertained by Antonio Maman)’ (1885-1969), a grand nephew who remembered attending the archbishop’s funeral, in 1888.

²Seνen of the thirteen Alamany children embraced religious life: Ignácιο (18121893) and Miguel (1819-1889) became diocesan priests; Emmanuel (1817-1903) and ,Juan (1826-1882) entered the Order of Preachers and two sisters, Josefa (1823-1872) and Micaela (1829-1899) eventually were received into the convent. ³Though the Archbishop of Sαn Francisco always signed his name “Aiemany,” most of his family in Spain preferred the alternate “Alamany” spelling. Until fairly recent times, Catalan was almost exclusively a spoken language rather than a written one, a factor which explains the confusion about vowels.

^}The early life of Alemanv has been extensively researched by Father Alberto Collell, a Dominican filar at Barcelona. A copy of his unpublished manuscript, “Biografia del Exco. y Rdmo. Fray Jσsé Sadoc Alemany, O.P., Primer Arzobispo de San Francisco de California,” was graciously placed on deposit in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA).

⁵It was in Santo Domingo, now a parochial church staffed by diocesan clergy, that Archbishop Alemmmany’s remains were interred, in 1888. The convent building, operated separately from the church, presently houses the Casa de Caridad. ⁶Αntοniο Alamany Comella (ed.), liustrisimo y Reverendisimo Fray José Sadoc Αlaman3’ Conill, Ο.Ρ., Obispo de Monterey y Primer Arzobispo de Sa” Francisco de Califonda Bch, 1925), p. 16. One of the few extant copies of this edition, mostly destroyed during the Spanish Civil V/ar, is in the AALA, courtesy of the late Antonio Alamany. It is a biographical compilation of facts, pastoral and personal letters, anecdotes and commentaries by and about the archbishop.

⁷Francis Sadoc Vilarrasa, O.P., Barcelona Revista Católica, April 5, 1845. BJοhn B. McGloin, S.J., California’s First Archbishop (New York, 1966), p. 49. Victor  F. O’Daniel, O.P., The Father of the Church in Tennessee (New York, 1926), p. 399.

¹⁰Reginald M. Coffey, O.P., The America” Dominicans (New York, 1969), p. 258.

^{1 1}Ιn the eventual bull of appointment, the title of the jurisdiction was changed to ^[p.80] “Monterey.”

¹²Victïr F O’Daniel, O.P., The Dominican Province of Saint Joseph (New York, 1942), p. 172.

¹³Victïr F. O’Daniel, O.P., The Father of the Church in Tennessee, ì. 440.

¹⁴Árchiíes of the University of Notre Dame (hereafter referred to as AUND), Samuel Eccleston to John B. Purcell, Baltimore, April 16, 1850.

¹⁵This spelling of Vilarrasa’s name is the one used by Alemany in the Libro Primero de Gobierno.

É⁶Reginald M. Coffey, O.P., op. cit., p. 260.

¹⁷The title of the jurisdiction was officially changed, in 1849, at the appointment of Father Montgomery, although the area remained geographically integral, until December 21, 1851. Apparently, Monterey was designated as the episcopal seat because it was the capital of California when the bulls were issued by the Holy See.

¹⁸Francis J. Weber (ed.), “The Long Lost Ecclesiastical Diary of Archbishop Alemany,” Cahfor nia Historical Society Quarterly XLIII (December, 1964), 320. ¹⁹ÉbéÑd.

²⁰ÉbéÑd.

2 tElevated to the episcopal college with Alernany was Msgr. Angelo Rammuzzotti, bishop-elect of Patvia. Assisting Franzoni were Archbishop Giovanni Steffanelli and Patriarch Giuseppe Valerga.

22J_oh_n B. lcGloin, S.J., “Prom Rome to Monterey in 1850: The Coming to California of Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany, OP.,” Southern California Quarterly XLVII (June, 1965), 153.

²³The silver chalice given to Bishop Alemany by the pontiff on that occasion is

retained by the prelate’s relatives at Itch. It was among the few possessions that

Alemany took with him when he returned to Spain after his retirement. ²⁴Antoniï Alamany Comella (ed.), op. cit., ì. 22.

²⁵Francis J. Weber, (ed.) “The Long Lost Ecclesiastical Diary of Archbishop Alemany,” 321.

²GÔhe association, founded in 1822 by Pauline Jaricot, hád as its purpose the

extending of the Catholic Faith by dispensing alms collected from its world-

wide membership. The association hád offices at Paris, Lyons and Fribourg. ²⁷ Viz., Richard Pius Miles, Ï.P., Bishop of Nashville, Tennessee.

²⁸Francis J. Weber (ed.), “The Long Lost Ecclesiastical Diary of Archbishop Alemany,” 321-322.

²⁹Ándersïn (1812-1850), a native of New Jersey, died in the cholera epidemic later that year. Fora sketch of “California’s Martyr of Charity,” see Francis J. Weber, Catholic Footprints in California, Pp. 136-138.

³⁰Joseph W. Riordan, S.J., The First Half Century of St. Ignatius Church and College (Sán Francisco, 1905), ì. 34. Many of the letters quoted in this volume were destroyed by the Sán Francisco earthquake and fire. ^[p.81]

³¹ Daily Alta Cnlijbún a, December 7, 1850.

³²ÁÁLÁ, “Arrival of the Rt. Rev’d Joseph Alemany, Bishop of California,”

December 10, 1850.

3 3Ihié1.

³⁴Francis J. Weber (ed.), “The Long Lost Ecclesiastical Diary of Archbishop

Alemany,” 323.

³⁵ÉbiÜ1., 324.

³ÃÁÁLÁ, Libro Borrador, Entry for December 25, 1850.

³⁷Ñastïral Letter of the Rt. Reu. Joseph S. Aleniany, O.P., Bishop of Monterey, Upper

California (San Francisco, 1851).

³⁸1ssue of April 12, 1851. ^[p.82]

[9] Bishopric of Monterey (1850-1853)

 The newly-installed Joseph Sadoc Alernany returned to San Francisco and, then journeyed on to Sacramento. According to a report in the New York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register, “the prelate proceeded immediately to the residence of the pastor, Rev. [Jοhn] Ingoldsby, and made the necessary preparations for the ceremonies to be performed. The Bishop commenced the dedication of the church at 10 a.m., and was assisted by the clergyman above named. An immense concourse of persons were present, and many went away, unable to gain an entrance. After the dedication the Bishop celebrated High Mass, and at the conclusion of the reading of the Gospel, preached an excellent and eloquent sermon, taking his text from that portion of Scripture relating to the dedication of Solomon’s Temple. The audience was very attentive and appeared much pleased. At the close of the sermon, Rev. Mr. [John] Llebaria read the Bishop’s Pastoral in Spanish, and preached in the same language; at the conclusion of which he preached again in French. Father L. is an able and fluent preacher and a zealous missionary. He was in this city during a portion of the cholera season and has since been in Marysville, where he has commenced the erection of a church. The Bishop has changed the field of his labors to Santa Cruz, where his knowledge of the Spanish and French languages will afford him a wider sphere for the exercise of his talents and acquirements, probably, than Marysville.” The account went on to say:

At Vespers the Bishop preached again on the Catholic Church,

proving that it was the same to-day as it was eighteen hundred
years ago, and that it was unchanged and unchangeable, having the ^[p.83] pledge of the Omnipotent to sustain it. IIe pointed to the writings of the Fathers to show that similar ceremonies to those performed here now were performed a thousand years ago; that St. Augustine prayed fοr the departed soul of his mοther,—αnd in fact that all the doctrines now taught by the Church were taught by the Fathers of the earliest period of Christianity. And, said he, it is in a measure owing to the investigation of the writings of the early Fathers, that so many learned and distinguished divines of the English Church have been led to the true fold of the One Shepherd.¹

When Alemany returned to Monterey, in March, with Father Vilarrasa and Mother Mary Goemaere, he was given the temporary use of William Ηartnell’s² home fοr educational purposes.

It was a plain adobe house.. the outside apparently small, while the interior abounded in deep, square rooms. In this house there were at once accommodations fοr a day school and fora limited number of boarders. The language of the pupils was exclusively Spanish. Both the Bishop and Father Vilarrasa...regularly taught in the school, without which assistance it would have been difficult to have carried on the good work.³

Early in March, the prelate inaugurated the convent of Santa Catalina, the first institution of its kind established along the Pacific Slope, under the superiorship of Sister Mary Gοemaere.⁴ Twelve boarders and sixty day students had enrolled for classes by the time school was ready to commence. Maria Cοnceρciόn Argüéllo, was the first novice to join a religious order in California. She received the habit, in April, 1851, αnd thereafter was known as Sister Mary Dominica.⁵ Two additional Sisters came from the motherhouse near Somerset, Ohio, in mid-1851, to join Sister Mary Goemaere αnd her faculty at the embryonic school. At the coaxing of Bishop Alemany, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, at Cincinnati, assigned four of their number to join the California aposto-late, in the summer of 1851, and this welcome addition resulted in the opening of Notre Dame Academy, at San Jοsé.

Meanwhile, the financially pressed Alemany anxiously investigated the possibilities of launching a legal claim for definitive restoration of mission property and with that in mind, he engaged in lengthy discussions with Governor Peter Burnett, Judge Pacificus Ord and other public officials.

The bishop’s concern fοr Catholic education was evident, in May, 1851, when provisions were passed and approved by the California ^[p.84]*

Legislature. The legislation stated that if a school is formed by a religious society, in which all the branches of education are taught, and if by private and public examination a committee finds the institution to be well conducted, then the institution can receive a compensation from the Public School Fund, in proportion to the number of its pupils. Institutions established under charitable auspices, such as orphan asylums, schools for the blind, alm-house schools, were to be subject to the general laws on education, but under the immediate management of their respective Trustees, Managers or Directors.

On May 8, 1851, Bishop Aiemany opened a school at Los Angeles, under the direction of the Picpus Fathers, with twenty-six students.⁶ Two months later, southland authorities approved legislation whereby $50 would be allotted towards educational costs of that institution and others in the city.? Unfortunately, the efforts of the Picpus Fathers met with little success and the school functioned only briefly, in 1852 and 1853.⁸

In his early years at Monterey, Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany leaned heavily on the support provided by the Paris office of the Societe por la Propagation de la Foi. Established some years previously, to further missionary activities, the society depended entirely on freewill offerings sent from all parts of the world. In his report for 1851, Alemany estimated at 40,000 the number of Catholics within the diocese. They “‘ere being served by forty-one priests, twenty-seven churches and eleven chapels, along with the seminary at Santa Ines, colleges at Santa Clara and Los Angeles, and academies at Monterey and San José. The bishop pleaded for additional funds with which to erect more buildings, thus to serve the Catholic populace more adequately.⁹

Alemany’s native Spain had been suffering for a number of years from internal strife, much of it directed toward the Church, its clergy and religious. It came then as no surprise when the “Duke of Victory,” General Baldomero Espartero, announced a complete withdrawal of his nation from the works of Propagation de la Foi in 1840. In mid-1851, some months after the Spanish Government had signed a new concordat with Rome, authorities of Propagation de la Foi asked the Bishop of Monterey to issue a gentle exhortation to his fatherland about its missionary responsibilities. This Alemany did on July 19th. Whether the plea ever reached Madrid or not is uncertain. In any event, the appeal, produced here in an abbreviated form, was put on record at Paris. It read as follows: ^[p.86] Oh Catholic Spain, how glorious for thee was the day on which thou didst send forth from thy most eastern shores to this land of America such apostolic men as Fathers Junipero Serra, Magin Catalá, Jos€ Viader, and many others! How deserved didst thou bear the name Catholic, when thou didst foster the spirit of those holy, religious and apostolic men, whose missionary field of labor was the world and who did not dread to cross two oceans to go and live both among the bears and savages of California. There they hoped that God would deliver them frοm the terrors of the former, and that the divine spirit of the Catholic Church would convert the ferocity of the latter into the mildness of the lambs of the children of Christ! Oh Catholic Spain! Missionaries frοm the shores effected a perfect change on the face of California! Thy arts, traders, music, language, hospitality, honesty, piety and Catholic Faith were engrafted and nurtured with success in this vast region of the farthest west. Thou didst stud these shores with a variety of monuments, whose picture alone makes the Anglo-Saxon pause and admire the greatness of the enterprise.

Oh Catholic Kingdom! How truly Catholic thou pert when thou didst promote those rich memorials of faith, those apostolic institutions, those missionary colleges and religious orders frοm whose bosom walked out so many apostles to evangelize the most distant regions of the east, and the barbarous unexplored confines of the west!

BUT, Oh how uncatholic thou wert, when in a raving fit of impiety thou didst exclaustrate those holy cloisters! How uncatholic that hour in which thou didst refuse admission into thy dominions of the noble catholic work of the Propagation of the Faith for the foreign missions, for fear that thy own poor should suffer frοm it! 10

The entrusting of Mission Santa Clara to the Society of Jesus marks the beginning of higher education in the diocese, a transfer approved by Alemany on August 8, 1851.¹¹ Actually it appeared that the parish was formally turned over to the Society, on March 19, with the bishop “stipulating expressly that a Jesuit College should be established there.” Father John Nobili was informed:

If we could receive some considerable amount out of the Pious

Fund of California, I would have a fair sum to assist all (and the
Jesuits just as everybody else) with pecuniary helps. However, my ^[p.87]*

 ^[p.88] actual condition does not permit much. Before I could promise myself help fοr other places, I had made arrangements to establish something in Monterey, and I would have to be false to those who then bound themselves to help me, if I did not afford them some little help.

Were Your Reverence to make application to the aforesaid Association of the Propagation of the Faith to establish a college in this diocese, you would doubtless receive something. When Your Reverence will commence to build, 1 shall do all in my power to give also some aid.¹²

Shortly thereafter, Alemany authorized the Picpus Fathers to open a college at Mission Dolores.¹³

In late September, 1851, Bishop Alemany deputized Father John Chrysostom Holbein, to officiate at San Diego for the cornerstone ceremonies of Immaculate Conception Church. The colorful event was described by J. Judson Ames:

At 4 o’clock, precisely, the folding doors of a large apartment in the house of Don Jos é Antonio Lstudillo, used fοr private worship, were thrown open, and a procession composed of the most esteemed and cherished members of the Church Universal, with the learned and devout “Padre,” in full canonicals at their head, preceded by interesting youths dressed in snow white frocks, and bearing in their hands silver vases and gold and silver candlesticks of great length, issued into the Plaza, and was increased every moment by the addition of citizens, male and female, Catholic and Protestant, until it reached the sacred spot.

The prayers being over, the priest consecrated with holy water the foundations of the building; after which, a scroll containing a memorandum of the date and place—the class of persons from whom the contributions were received (of which we were glad to see many Protestants) together with the names of several who formed part of the procession, was securely sealed in a vessel of indestructible nature, and placed under the cornerstone about to be laid.¹⁴

At the conclusion of his commentary, the observer amusingly noted that “there are no influences over the mind of man like those of religion and women. The one exalts and ennobles, and other regulates and purifies.”^{15  [p.89]} For several years, Father Vilarrasa had possessed approval from the Dominican Vicar General to establish a monastery at Monterey.¹⁶ The California foundation was licensed as a separate province under the patronage of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. The novitiate, established on February 4, 1852, with six novices from Catalonia, was moved two years later, to Benicia, California. From the earliest days the monastery followed the strict observance, as is evident frοm one of Father Vílarrasa’s letters:

In our convent, by way of observance, we do not know the taste of meat, but we do have good fish and eggs. Daily at three in the morning we say Matins; at six we have meditation, Prime, Conventual Mass, and at seven we have coffee...¹⁷

Meanwhile the bishop petitioned the Holy Father seeking the usual approbation of the monastery for the Dominicans, as well as autonomy for the Franciscan foundation at Santa Barbara.

Friar Joseph S. Alemany, of the Order of Preachers, by the grace of God and the favor of the Apostolic See, unworthy Bishop of Monterey in Upper California, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, humbly represents: That the Religious of the Orders of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic who have labored with apostolic zeal and with much fruit to souls, may devote themselves to labor in these missions, we humbly and earnestly supplicate that at least one convent or college of each of these Orders be established for the missions in this Diocese, and that to them be granted a Novitiate.1 s

Alemany’s request was granted, on February 29, 1852, by Pius IX at a Papal Audience given to Archbishop Alessandro Βόrnabo, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide.

The Monterey diocese continued to belong to the Metropolitan District of Mexico City, even after its title was changed to Monterey, in 1849. As early as March 31, 1851, Alemany suggested to Roman officials that the diocese be made suffragan to one of the already established archbishoprics in the United States. The political implications of this delicate arrangement were obviously recognized, for on December 21, 1851, the diocese was separated frοm its earlier jurisdiction and placed immediately under the direction of Rome.¹⁹

The first of California’s ecclesiastical synods was summoned on February 10, 1852. Bishop Alemany wanted that assemblage to serve ^[p.90]*

 ^[p.91] I-Iistorγ of the Catholic Church in Southern California — ^{*[p.184]**[p.0]*}-^{*[p.194]**[p.7]} jointly as a spiritual exercise and an occasion fοr discussing necessary diocesan business.²⁰ The synod met on Friday, March 19, and remained in session until the 23rd. Meetings were held at Saint Francis Church, on Vallejo Street, in San Francisco.^{2 1 In attendance at this important legislative gathering were Fathers Jose Maria} González Rbio, Jοsé Jimeno, Francisco Sánchez αnd eighteen other priests of the California jurisdiction.

Upon conclusion of the synod, the proposed decrees were sent to Rome fοr approval, which was given, August 6, 1854.²² The clergymen in attendance advised the bishop to urge the Mexican government towards compliance with its commitments fοr the California Church...²³ Among other actions was that touching upon mission property. Alemany noted that “all the priests of the diocese, assembled in the diocesan synod, concur with me in urging the United States Land Commission to confirm to me the Mission properties.”²⁴ Subsequent testimony given by Father José Jimeno, on April 20, 1854, indicates the lengths to which the synodal fathers concerned themselves on this important topic.

1 was present at a conference of the Catholic clergy of California in 1852 which assembled on March 19th at San Francisco. A resolution was adopted requesting αnd empowering the Bishop to apply to the Government fοr the Church lands throughout the State.²⁵

Similar testimony, from Father Francisco Sánchez, further corroborates the feeling of the local clergy:

The Conference of the Catholic clergy of this diocese in 1852 adopted a resolution to claim from the United States Government the churches, sacristies, adjoining buildings, cemeteries, gardens, orchards and vineyards as property of the Church, αnd one section of land at each mission for the Church, αnd one league of land at each mission for the care of the Indians.²⁶

In 1852, Bishop Alemany made overtures to John Marvin, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, about the possibility of allowing parochial schools to share in educational allotments. The superintendent recommended the proposal to the legislature, which amended the law, in 1853, to allow denominational schools to receive apportionment from the school funds.²⁷

Prior to 1850, California legislation stipulated that real estate held by a religious body could not exceed two whole lots in a town, or twenty acres in the county. However, on May 12, 1853, the state removed the restric-  ^[p.92]

The old presidio chapel of San Carlos Borromeo served as Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany ò cathedral during his days as Bishop of Monterey. The venerable building again became a cathedral with the appointment of Harry Á. Clinch to the Bishopric of Monterey in 1967. ^[p.93] t^*[p.6] tion and adopted into its statutes provisions for corporation sole. The new law read, in part:

Whenever the rules, regulations and discipline of any religious denomination, society or church require for the administration of the temporalities thereof, and the management of the estate and property thereof, it shall be lawful for the bishop, chief priest or presiding elder of such religious denomination, society or church to become a sole corporation

The measure went on to state that” ... all property held by such bishop, chief priest or presiding elder, shall be in trust for the use, purpose and behalf of his religious denomination, society or church.” In the spring of 1852, Bishop Alemany left for Baltimore, and the first of the nation’s plenary councils. He stopped enroute at New York, for business reasons, and then went on to Emmitsburg, where he successfully negotiated for nuns to open an orphan asylum and day school in San Francisco.

The council opened on May 9, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick of Baltimore. At the initial private meeting, attended by the five metropolitans and twenty-five suffragans, the status of the Monterey diocese was extensively discussed. The first of Alemany’s interventions concerned one of California’s most celebrated legal cases. The Bishop of Monterey carefully explained to the assembled prelates “the claim of the Church in Upper Caiifonua against the Mexican government for a share in the Pious Fund of California and its revenue, that fund having been established under the Spanish government by the generosity of pious individuals for the support of the missions in California.”29

On May 20, the council’s committee on temporal affairs issued a statement30 recommending that the bishop personally initiate proceedings with Washington officials at the earliest opportunity.

Quum Illmus et Reimtus D. Montisregis exponeret magnam pecuniae summarn ad missiones in California sustentandos olim erogatum Gubernio civili Mexici ... ipse a Patribus quaerebat quid hac in re opportunum sit fieri. ³¹

Alemany also engaged in lengthy conversations with Archbishop Kenrick, titular head of the Catholic Church in the United States, on the large debt due the Church and missions in California by Mexico.32 Upon his return from Baltimore, Bishop Alemany stopped in the nation’s capital where he sought advice from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. One commentator states that “Taney could be of little help with regard to the Bishop’s perplexities regarding the Pious Fund because, in this case, the Mexican government was directly at odds with the Church,” and not with the officials at Washington.³³

Acting at the behest of the American hierarchy and, armed with credentials from the United States Department of State, Bishop Alernany journeyed from Washington to Mexico City where, as he recorded in his journal, “I demanded... that satisfaction be made to our Church in California, that as successor to Bishop Garcia Diego, I justly demanded for my missions and for my Church what Mexico owed from the Pious Fund to my diocese; and that they should cease also to oppose my administration in Lower California.”³⁴

On July 26, 1852, the prelate appealed to the Ministerio de Justicia y Negocios Eclesidsticos. After a delay of several months, the Mexican Government informed Alemany that the original donors did not intend that the Pious Fund be expended exclusively for aiding the missions of California. The prelate was also reminded that the Church was no longer

actively engaged in the particular work for which the trust was initiated, namely, the conversion of infidels in North America.³⁵ While expressing sympathy for the bishop’s financial embarrassment, Mexican officials felt that the prior claim of the poor and backward missions still in their own country, coupled with the well-known penury of the Public Treasury, rendered any monetary settlement by the government completely out of the question. On October 11, after officials had slammed the door or further negotiations, the prelate appointed Pedro Ramirez his agent and set out for hone.

Enroute back to California, Alemany administered the Sacrament of Confirmation on several occasions, in areas where the local bishop was not readily available for one reason or another, a gesture fοr which Pope Pius ΙX personally thanked the prelate.³⁶ Bishop Alemany arrived back at San Francisco, in November of 1852, where he had the privilege of ordaining the Irish seminarian, John Quinn, to the priesthood at Saint Francis Church.³⁷

An interesting insight into the ecclesial activities of California during the early 1850s can be gleaned from a letter written to Ireland by Father Eugene O’Connell, one of the priests who had journeyed west at the solicitation of Bishop Alemany. Speaking of the “iniquity” prevalent in San Francisco, O’Connell noted that

The rage for duelling, the passion fοr gambling and barefaced

depravity prevail to a frightful degree...Venus has numerous tern-  ^{[p.95]* [p.96]} pies erected to herself in this city but, thank God, the Catholic Church is not deserted all the while. The two Catholic churches are crowded every Sunday and, notwithstanding the enlargement of one of them by Architect O’Connor (nephew of the Bishop), it is full to overflowing.

An amusing facet of O’Connell’s letter dwelt on some of the more common pastimes of the citizenry:

I don’t know whether you are aware of some of our California liberties which beat the Gallican ones hollow. Take, for example, that of eating meat toties quoties on every Friday except the Fridays in Lent—and don’t infer from this that the finest salmon in the world don’t abound on our shores! There is again the universal custom of smoking cigars (secluso scandalo ullo), so that it is rather sin gular to be seen without a cigar save at Mass or at meals. The only scandal to my knowledge given by a smoking clergyman was owing to his having repeatedly put the ignited end into his mouth instead of the opposite extreme. Hence you perceive it is neither the simple fact of smoking per se, nor of drinking per se, but the unlucky combination of both by a clergyman which makes him confound both ends of a lighted cigar. Then, and not till then, do the ladies and gentlemen receive a slight shock!³⁸

NOTES TO THE TEXT

Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register, April 19, 1851.

²Wilham E.P. Hartnell (1798-1854) was a prominent merchant who was most interested in the state’s early pedagogical activities. For a biographical sketch of this Catholic pioneer, see Francis J. Weber, Readings in California Catholic History, Pp. 168-170.

³Sister M. Aloysius, O.P., “The Dominicans in California,” Dominicana I (December, 1900), 343.

⁴The former Catherine Adelaide Goemaere (1809-1891) became prioress when the institution received canonical status, July 18, 1851.

⁵Fοr a biographical sketch of Doua Concepción (1792-1857), See Francis J. Weber, Readings in California Catholic History, Pp. 147-149.

⁶Revίsta Católica, October 2, 1851.

⁷Charles C. Conroy, “The Picpus School in Los Angeles,” Academy Scrapbook II (November, 1951), 167. Subsequent legislation forbade “sectarian doctrines in public schools and public money to sectarian schools.” See Mark J. Hurley, ^[p.97] Church-State Relationships in Education in Califon nia (Washington, 1948), ì. 22. ⁸Ôhe Catholic Directory makes no further mention of this school after 1853. ⁹AALA, Joseph Sadie Alernany, O.P., to Propagation de la Foi, San Francisco, July 19, 1851.

t⁰Excerìted from Francis J. Weber, C’atholic Footprints in California, Pp. 188-190. 1 tAALA, Libro Primero de Gobierno, Entry fïr August 8, 1851.

¹²Jïseph W. Riordan, Si., op. cit., ì. 35.

¹³Francis J. Weber (ed.), “The Long Lost Ecclesiastical Diary of Archbishop Alemany, 326.

14San Diego Herald, October 9, 1851.

¹⁵Ébid.

¹⁶On July 21, 1850, the Dominican Definitorium Generale in Rome had formally authorized establishment of a province in California.

¹⁷Quïted by Paul M. Starrs, O.P., (ed.), “Miscellany. The California Chronicle of Francis Sadie Vilarrasa, OP.,” Catholic Historical Review XXXVIÉ (January, 1952), 425n.

¹ßSÂÌÁ, Joseph Sadie Alernany, O.P., to Pius IX, February 29, 1852.

¹⁹This decree was not received by Bishop Aiemany until November 28, 1852, according to the Libro Primero de Gobierno.

²⁰The Libro Primero de Gobierno states: “Die Februarii 10 mittitur ad ornes Sacerdotes epistola convocans ad Exercitia Spiritualia pro Clem et ad Cïllationem habendam de quibusdam negotiis diocesis.”

²¹Fïr the interesting story 0f this forgotten synod, see Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., “The First Ecclesiastical Synod of California,” Catholic Historical Review I (April, 1915), 30-37.

²²The second of California’s synods did not begin until October, 1854. Decrees published fïr that convocation essentially repeated the earlier ones.

²³Francis J. Weber, The United States Versus Mexico: The Final Settlement of The Pious Fund (Los Angeles, 1969), ì. 16.

²⁴ÁÁLÁ, Libro Borrador, Entry fïr March 10, 1852.

²⁵See Maynard J. Geiger, OEM., Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California Pp. 132-133.

²⁶Ébid., p. 216.

²⁷Ñeter T. Conmy, “The Friar Joseph Sadie Alemany, Bishop of Monterey...” p. 3.

²⁸Cïmpiled Laws of the State of California (Boston, 1853), ì. 310. (Stat. 1852. p. 168, Civil Code, sec. 602.). On February 24, 1854, Alernany, by then the Archbishop of San Francisco, established himself as a corporation sole. Fïr the historical background, see Francis J. Weber, “Corporation Sole in California,” The Jurist XXV (July, 1965), 330-334.

²⁹The Pittsburgh Catholic as quoted in John Gilmary Shea, History of the Catholic Church in the United States, 1844-1866 (New York, 1892), W,, 370. Fïr further elaboration, see Harry B. Morrison, “The Archbishop’s claim: The History of ^[p.98]

the Legal Claim 0f the Catholic Church before the Federal Courts to the Property of the California Missions,” The Jurist XLV (1987), 394-422. ³⁰Francis J. Weber, “The Long Lost Ecclesiastical Diary of Archbishop Alemany,” p. 327.

³¹See Conciliune Plenarium To tins Americae Septentrionalis Foederatae Baltimori Habitar Anno 1852, pp. 1-64.

³²Librο Borrador, Entry for May 18, 1852.

³³Jοhn B. McGloin, Si., California’s First Archbishop, p. 134.

³⁴ΑΑLΑ, Libro Borrador, entry for July 11, 1852.

³⁵José Maria Aguirre Gοnzilez to Joseph Sadoc /Vemany, O.P., Mexico City, September 29, 1852, reproduced as Exhibit 2 in Deposition of Mr John T. Doyle With Exhibits (Sαn Mateo, 1902), p. 10.

³⁶Αrchives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (hereafter referred to as AASF) Pius IX to Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P., Rome, January 12, 1853.

³⁷ΑΑLΑ, Libro Primero de Gobierno, Entry for November 28. Father Quinn (1825-1864) studied at Carlow. During his priestly career, he built Saint Rose’s Church, in Sacramento and Saint Mary’s Church, in Oakland. He died in San Francisco on Christmas eve, 1864.

³⁸Τhis letter, written to the Reverend David Moriarty, President of All Hallows College, on June 15, 1853, is reproduced in Francis J. Weber, Documents of California Catholic History (Los Angeles, 1965), Pp. 67-69. The author of this letter, Eugene O’Connell (1815-1891), had been Professor of Theology at All Hallows College before getting a three-year leave to work in the missionary area of California. He was superior of the seminary at Santa Inés and pastor in Sαn Francisco between 1851 αnd 1854. In that latter year, he was named Dean of A11 Hallows College αnd forced to return to Ireland, where he remained until his selection as Vicar Apostolic of Marysville, September 26, 1860. He became Bishop of Grass Valley, in 1868, and served in that capacity until his retirement, in 1884. ^[p.99]

[10] Α Metropolitan District for California

Among the many recommendations proposed to the Holy See by the

prelates attending the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, was that of providing a metropolitan district for the Church in California.⁾ In mid-October, 1853, Bishop Alemany received official notification that Pope Pius IX had erected a provincial seat fοr the “far-flung limits”z of California, in San Francisco,³ “to provide fοr the orderly administration and the welfare of souls.” ⁴

Alemany told a priestly collaborator that “I should have preferred the smaller labor of Monterey, but there has been nο option. Ī am glad that the burden has been divided, and thus the [smallerj Diocese of Monterey can receive better care.” The prelate went on to tell his friend that “you will see that the boundaries of the [Arch] Diocese of San Francisco are the southern parallel of the parish or congregation of the pueblo of San j οs. Over the country south of this I have nο longer any jurisdiction.” ⁵ Until the arrival of the new bishop for the Diocese of Monterey, however, Alemany was to function as Apostolic Administrator. The San Francisco prelate immediately named Father Jos é Maria González Rúbio as Vicar General of the Monterey jurisdiction.⁶

Even after the bestowal of provincial status to the California Church, and his own advancement to the archbishopric, Alernany continued to exert a vital influence in the affairs of his suffragan Diocese of Monterey. He officiated at every notable southland ecclesiastical function, including the consecration of the Iglesia de Nuestra Seīiοrn de los Angeles. He was co-ordaining minister for Francisco Mora’s elevation to the episcopacy, on August 3, 1873, and three years later, the archbishop consecrated Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, at Los Angeles.? ^[p.100] The name of Joseph Sadoc Alemany is written large in the history of the Catholic Church in California for he met and conquered the challenging problems of a most trying pioneer period. He lived to see his original jurisdiction divided into two vicariates, an archdiocese and two diocesesº with a Catholic population in excess 300,000.

The story of Alemany’s subsequent years as Archbishop of San Francisco, a period which spanned thirty-one years, has been told elsewhere. Suffice to say that he “left as a legacy to the diocese the example of a true apostle, and died as an apostle should, possessing nothing but the merits of his `works which had gone before him.”⁹

Alemany’s early years in Monterey were attended by many hardships. Discouraging delays, arising from the lack of enthusiasm or the utter indifference to progress that characterized the native population of that day, delayed many good undertakings. His persevering efforts, however, were crowned with signal success.¹⁰

Alemany’s departure made way for another giant in California’s eccle-sial annals. Chosen to succeed him at Monterey was one of the most fascinating personages ever to grace the American scene, Father Thaddeus Amat, a religious of the Congregation of the Mission.

NOTES TO THE TEXT

¹Peter K. Guilday, A History of the Councils of Baltimore (1791-1884) (New York, 1932), p. 188.

ZThe “far flung” boundaries mentioned were: Mexico on the south, the Colorado River in the east, the 42° of north latitude (Oregon boundary) and the Pacific Ocean on the West.

³San Francisco enjoys the distinction of being one of the only six archbishoprics created during the longest pontifical reign (thirty-two years!) in history.

⁴AASF, Bull of Erection, Rome, July 29, 1853.

⁵SΒΜΑ, Joseph Sadoc Alernany, O.P. to José Maria González Rιíbiο, O.EM., San Francisco, October 18, 1853.

⁶SBMA, Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P. to José Maria González Rúbiο, O.F.M., San Francisco, November 3, 1853.

⁷Francis J. Weber, “An Historical Sketch of Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, Los Angeles,” Southern California Quarterly XLIV (March, 1962), 51.

⁸Vicariate of Baja California (1853), Archdiocese of San Francisco (1853), Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles (1859) and the Diocese of Grass Valley (1868). The Vicariate of Utah was established, in 1886, after Archbishop Alemany’s retirement. ^[p.103]

⁹Ñátrick W. Riordan, “Joseph Sadoc Alemany,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907)1, 282-283.

¹o”The Semi-Centennial of the Archdiocese of San Francisco,” Dominicana IV (July 1903), 191. ^[p.104]

[1] A Glance Backward............................. 1

[2] New Era For California’s Church........ 5

[3] Proposal for Bishopric in the Californias 11

[4] The Friar Bishop—Francisco Garcia Diego     18

[5] Bishop of Both Californias (1840-1846). 30

[6] The Interim Years (1846-1850) ........ 56

[7] The “Almost” Bishop—Charles P. Montgomery     63

[8] Harbinger of New Era Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P.       67

[9] Bishopric of Monterey (1850-1853) . 83

[10] A Metropolitan District for California 100