They continued with their meeting in brilliant sunshine.
* * *
“I don’t know how much you’ve been told, or what questions you’ve asked of Fray Manso as you’ve come on your journey, your Lordship,” Custos Salas said politely, “so please forgive me if I repeat anything you may have already been told regarding our ministry.” Determined, urbane, and politically cunning, the former Provincial of Jalisco and Michoacan—whose office was analogous to that of territorial governor—Salas had served his various apprenticeships well leading to his present position, to which he had been recently assigned, as custodian of his Order. He cleared his throat and began with the details of the Franciscan ministry, memorized for delivery to each of the dignitaries who came up the trail.
“Previously,” he said, “the ecclesiastical superior in the colony held the title of comisario, which implied temporary authority only, delegated by our mother Province of the Holy Gospel in the city of Mexico. Fray Juan de Escalona, who is buried in our church here, held that title. We’re set up differently now,” he explained, while looking about the table at the three men. “We’re now an autonomous unit, with a chapter, definitors, and our own prelate and father custos, or custodian, an administrator elected by the Holy Gospel Province in Mexico. I hold the titles of prelate and father custos now,” he said, while chewing on a new apple, “but others in our Custody of St Paul, most recently Fray Esteban de Perea, who founded the mission of La Concepcion at the Pueblo of Quarai, and who presently serves New Mexico as agent for the Holy Office, have been previously honored—or burdened, I know not which—by these responsibilities.”
“And how many priests are you now?” the governor asked, glancing at the cowled figures he saw throughout the courtyard.
“The Crown has agreed to subsidize the work of sixty-six missionaries, your Lordship, most of whom are now in place, grouped in twenty-five missions or conventos, spread up and down the valley of the Rio del Norte and in pueblos far distant from here.”
“So why are you here at this pueblo, rather than in Santa Fe?” Rosas asked rudely, “is the villa so bad that you have to hide here?”
Custos Salas, who appeared to be censoring what he wished to say, waited a long moment before responding, seemingly looking for assistance from his fellow cleric.
Finally Fray Manso interjected, “The decision to separate our headquarters from those of the governor was made by our prelate, Fray Alonso de Peinado, more than two decades ago,” Manso explained, “to establish Santo Domingo as the ecclesiastical capital of our adobe kingdom. It seemed best, I’ve been assured, to separate civil and religious authority here. It was, I think, the best solution to the difficulties previously encountered.”
“Difficulties?” Rosas asked. “Of what difficulties do you speak?”
“Difficulties between Church and State,” Salas responded. “Difficulties such as those presented by Governor Eulate in his administration of the kingdom,” he said, while brushing crumbs from the table and then scattering them along the flagstone floor for the birds to eat. Salas waited for a long moment before continuing, careful, it appeared, to ensure that the Indian servants who worked around them would not hear his remarks. He continued then in a dark tone. “He was a petulant, tactless, irreverent soldier whose actions were motivated by an open contempt for the Church and its ministers and by an exaggerated concept of his own authority as the representative of the Crown. When I spoke with him regarding this—his authority as representative of the Crown—he said, ‘The king is my patron.’ The king is my patron!” Salas railed before catching himself and then continuing in a more guarded tone. “Can you even imagine one speaking in that manner?” he asked in exasperation. “He was a man more suited to operating a junk shop than to holding the office of governor!” No longer able to contain his anger, he exploded, “A bag of arrogance and vanity without love of God or zeal for His divine honor or for the King’s. A man of evil example in word and deed, he did not deserve to be governor but was rather a hawker and a creature of his vile pursuits!”2
“Of what vile pursuits do you speak?” Rosas asked with undisguised interest.
“Of authorizing slavery, forced labor, and sweatshops,” Salas whispered. “And he attempted to undermine the priests in their work here.” Continuing in a whisper, Salas added, “He said that we didn’t work and that all we did was sleep and eat, while married men went about diligently working to earn their necessities. When I think of his words,” he said sadly, “I think of my brothers, Fray Francisco de Letrado and Fray Martin de Arvide, who were killed by the Zuni just five years ago, and of Fray Francisco de Porras who was poisoned at Hopi just a year later. My priests did not enslave the Indians as he did,” Salas said angrily, the volume returning to his voice. “Rather, they died in ministering to them. Governors Mora and Martinez were in much the same vein,” Salas continued, “greedy and avaricious. Today, we hope for better,” he said faking a confiding smile.3
“The pope is the head in Christian society,” he said. “Authority flows from Christ to Peter to the pope, and from him, to us. The members of the clergy are, therefore, heads of the body politic and supreme over all provincial matters. We, as the representatives of the Custody of Saint Paul, see our roles here—those of the governor, the priests, and the settlers—as constituting a type of mystical body, with the governor and soldier-settlers as the arms and hands, which protect the Church from heretics and other enemies, and the Indians as the feet, which sustain and carry the weight of the entire body. We look forward to your assistance and cooperation in our work with the Indians, the provision of escorts, the loan of oxen to haul rock and dirt for the construction of our missions, and your condemnation of Martinez’s misrule.”4
* * *
What followed was a silence more damning than words in which Rosas seemed to be studying the birds and the distant mountains. Then he said in a measured tone, “We see our roles very differently, Father. I see the king as a warrior who carries two swords, one temporal, the other spiritual, the spiritual blade in the form of concessions of royal patronage5 given to him by the pope almost 150 years ago. Therefore, it is he and not the pope who is the Vicar of Christ, a role that has been extended to the viceroy and through him, to me as provincial governor. Thus, jurisdiction over military, judicial, legislative, and commercial matters, as well as the administration of the Church, ultimately falls to me and not to you. But we’ll see,” he said. “We’ll have to see.” Then, changing the subject entirely, he asked, “And the Indians here at Santo Domingo, are they difficult?”
Salas waited for a long moment before responding, questioning whether he should further pursue a clarification of their roles, but ultimately deciding against that course of action. Instead, he followed the governor’s lead in pursuing his discussion regarding the Indians. “The Keres of Santo Domingo are reputed to be the most difficult in the kingdom,” Salas responded, “secretive and withdrawn from the surrounding civilization. Occasionally, they still make us tortillas from urine and mice meat, but we’re getting used to the taste,” he said, smiling at Fray Manso. “We cut their hair as punishment, but we’ve been unable to stop them from making bread in that manner, for mice and urine abound.”
Observing the other three as they ate their cheese and drank their wine in New Mexican sunshine, Salas sensed that there was nothing more to be accomplished by their meeting, or by attempting to further crush the grapes, knowing the mash to be sour. He asked, “Would you like to see the church?”
On the outside of the principal church was a balcony formed by the projection of choir loft timbers and by the overhang of the nave roof. The balcony was available only through a small choir-loft window that was covered over with heavy timbers and barred from the inside. On the inside of the church the dimness of the nave was relieved by light provided by two small and inaccessible gridiron windows in
