in the walls cast a reddish glow over the interior. A Mexican string orchestra waited for the bishop’s entrance, with all the available clergy, for the singing of the Te Deum. He was now robed in his purple cassock, surplice, mozzeta, and a heavy white stole embroidered in gold bullion. Machebeuf, as his vicar general, accompanied him.
Looking upon him clearly now, the people saw Lamy in his early middle age, with the signs of ten years of hard, maturing work on him. Gaunt and sparely built, he was weathered from his travels. His manner was mild but when he met their gaze, his dark eyes sparkled. His head was broadly modelled, with deeply porched eyes and strongly shadowed cheeks, outlined by his long, dark, curly hair. In repose his wide mouth wore a melancholy expression, but when he smiled people felt the illumination of his nature. Patience, civility, and intelligence marked his face. His jaw was bony and square, and his chin was resolute. He seemed young—and in fact was, at thirty-seven—to be a bishop. His vicar general looked older than he. They saw that Machebeuf was shorter, and how his thin little frame seemed to quiver with controlled animation. His hair, long and brushed straight back from his spacious brow, was light. His face was as plain as the bishop’s was handsome. Over his deep-set little eyes he wore small spectacles rimmed in metal. His face was lean, with marked cheekbones, and his mouth was a trifle protuberant, with a thick lower lip. A large mole made a lump on his right jaw. His collar was too large for his thin neck. Through all this, his witty and compassionate nature charmed people’s spirits when they looked at him. However curious a pair they were to come before strangers whose ways and wants were so different, the Santa Feans paid respect to their offices now.
The Te Deum was sung, and in the liturgical intervals, the music of the fandangos—for it was the only music available—twanged forth from the string players. Lamy at the end gave his triple blessing, and was then conducted to the adjacent rector’s house of Monsignor Ortiz. What Lamy found there amazed him. The house, as both he and Machebeuf remarked, was transformed into a veritable “Episcopal palace”—presumably with rich furniture, hangings, and rugs. Ortiz had moved out in order to accommodate the bishop, and had taken up residence under his mother’s roof. The rectory looked like a suitable lodgement and Lamy resolved to live there.
Now followed a “magnificent dinner” to which came all the leading authorities and citizens of the town, including Mexicans and immigrant Americans, Protestants and Catholics alike, military and civil. It was such a feast, declared Machebeuf, as to cause Lamy and himself to forget entirely their long journey across the Texas deserts.
The day needed only one more blessing to make it memorable. As at El Paso, and all the length of New Mexico, the drought over Santa Fe had been ruinous. Fields and ranges were scorched, cattle and sheep were dying of starvation, the hardest of times faced the people. Like everyone in New Mexico, the guests at the ceremonial dinner were all concerned at the disaster which threatened. And then, on the very day of the bishop’s arrival, clouds appeared from across the mountains, and rain fell in torrents until the earthen streets ran like brown rivers. The downpour was general. Crops would revive, the grass ranges be saved. The year would be one of plenty after all. In the common thought, could it be anything but an omen?
The day’s welcome could hardly have been more joyful, and, in terms of what was to be had in Santa Fe, extravagant. But if Lamy thought it an auspicious beginning for his new labors, he was wrong.
IV
THE DESERT DIOCESE
1851–1852
i.
Defiance
A LEADER IN THE JUBILANT WELCOME given to Lamy, Juan Felipe Ortiz, the rural dean (or vicar forane) at Santa Fe, reserved until later the most unexpected news he had for the new bishop. Having paid all proper respect to mitre and crozier—Lamy was undoubtedly a bishop—Ortiz, and the local clergy over whom he presided, suddenly maintained that Lamy was not the bishop for Santa Fe, and refused to recognize him as such.
It was astonishing to be told this after all the triumphal arches, the episcopal palace of mud placed at his disposal, the public excitement. How could this be?
Ortiz stood his ground, believing he had good reason to do so. Only a few months ago, his own bishop, Zubiría of Durango, had been in Santa Fe, when the two discussed the ruling given to Durango by Rome—that Mexican bishops should “continue to exercise their episcopal authority north of the border.” What else (as Bishop Blanc had noted earlier) could have taken Zubiría to New Mexico after the 1846 war?
But the papal bulls, the faculties vested in Lamy, all set forth in the documents which he carried with him?
Well and good, conceded Ortiz; but he had had no word from Durango that the episcopal power was to be transferred, and lacking such direct authority, the dean would continue to disavow Lamy as his ordinary. His local clergy would do the same, for it was to him that they looked as the representative of Bishop Zubiría. As rural dean since 1832, Ortiz had been responsible for the entire administration of the Church in New Mexico—the duties of the clergy, the upkeep of the churches, the keeping of parish records, the strict observance of the liturgy, the care of sick priests, continuous visits to his parishes, and the making of annual reports to his bishop. Ortiz had shown no zeal for his duties, and under his regime his clergy had lost theirs. But in the matter of a change of bishops, he was suddenly zealous, legalistic, and rudely stubborn.
Lamy, in his amazement, yet considered the matter from the dean’s point of view and patiently concluded that the dean was technically justified in his position. Conferring with Machebeuf, he wrote to Zubiría in Durango asking for a swift confirmation by letter of Rome’s new appointment.
The news of Lamy’s presence and pretensions went to Zubiría from another source—the pastor of Taos, Father Antonio José Martínez. “Your illustrious lordship,” he wrote, “perhaps knows that New Mexico has been erected as a bishopric [actually vicariate apostolic], and Fr. Juan Lamy was appointed to be its bishop.… I have regretted a great deal the separation of New Mexico from the diocese of your Illustrious Lordship,” and he hinted that a “superior authority”—evidently referring to the territorial United States governor—was behind the move.
Durango lay five hundred leagues to the south in Mexico. A letter from there must take time to arrive. Meantime, Lamy could not remain idle. His documents made one matter binding—he had in them a legal claim to the Church properties of New Mexico; and even the dean must bow before this. The new bishop moved swiftly to take custody of Church buildings, chapels, and other properties, and succeeded in all but one case. This instance, before it was resolved, was a scandal, a farce, an occasion for the public passion for which the citizens of Santa Fe have always been famous. The case had to do with the Chapel of Our Lady of Light on the south side of the earthen plaza of the old city. This was popularly called the “Castrense”—a word signifying that which belonged to the military.
It had been the old military chapel of the Spanish/Mexican garrison of Santa Fe, and, in much disrepair, it had been appropriated by the United States territorial government after the 1846 war, evidently without protest by the rural dean. A United States lieutenant in 1846 noted it as “the richest church in Santa Fe,” though it was then in ruins, the roof fallen in, and bones of parishioners once interred below the earth floor lying about in random exposure. He saw the carved stone reredos, dated 1761, with its panels of saints and a central bas-relief of Our Lady of Light “rescuing a human being from the jaws of Satan whilst angels are crowning her.” He fancifully detected Egyptian influence in the ornamental carved columns which enclosed the central panels. By 1849, the roof had been repaired, and the building was in use as a storehouse by the United States authorities.
Within
