by Paul Horgan
In 1880 citizens watched as the “new gasometer and conduit” were being erected to bring gas for lighting to the central streets and the plaza, and a year later, the telephone reached Santa Fe. President Rutherford B. Hayes paid a visit to town, and Lamy was in the fore-front of the reception mounted for him. Despite an outbreak of smallpox in epidemic proportions in 1883, when Lamy issued a pastoral letter directing priests to prevent public funerary display of those who died of the highly contagious disease, the vicar general of the archdiocese predicted that New Mexico would in time, when better known, become “the great sanitarium of the United States,” citing its “elevation, its dry atmosphere, its mineral and hot springs,” as cures for pulmonary diseases. If people died of such in New Mexico, it was, he said, because they had come there too late.
Marvels were known—a priest galloping near Pecos saw a curious quadruped; followed; captured it; found it to be a “wild girl”—a child—who had disappeared years before from her home. Her parents came and recognized their daughter Carmela. And matters for pity: in 1881, Lamy’s old adversary, the ex-priest Gallegos, was brought to St Vincent’s Hospital after suffering a stroke. He made signs asking for something. Many guesses were made as to what he wanted, to all of which he indicated “No!” until at last someone said “priest,” and he brightened, and Monsignor Eguillon, at the cathedral, was sent for, but arrived too late to see Gallegos alive and to bring him anything but prayers for the dead and—most likely—conditional absolution. Lamy, on another occasion, was “cast down with sadness” when his nephew and namesake, returning from a trip out of town, shot to death the French architect François Mallet, who had tried to offer unwelcome attentions to young Lamy’s wife. The murderer was acquitted.
In another claim on Lamy’s loyal sympathy, the archbishop’s old friend and mentor, Purcell of Cincinnati, needed tactful help in deep trouble. During the financial panic of 1873, deposits of personal savings had been given into Purcell’s care, and he in turn had given his brother custody of the monies, who in turn had trusted others. The finances of the archdiocese were in disorder; and finally Rome concluded that Purcell must be relieved of all financial management. To accomplish this as considerately as possible, the Propaganda Fide wrote to Lamy saying that the Pope had ordered the appointment of a coadjutor for Purcell to be made at once, with the right of succession; and Lamy was now given a delicate mission: “I ask that you, following your old custom, visit the Archbishop and relate this decision to him, and suggest that during the next provincial Synod a suitable person, especially well versed in temporal matters, be proposed [as coadjutor to Purcell]; and in this way the honor of the Church would be preserved, and by using discretion and the most considerate of means, the needed arrangement be achieved.…” The matter was resolved accordingly; but Purcell, in an extremity of embarrassment, went into retirement at the convent of the Brown County Ursulines. To what active and well-loved older colleague could Lamy write thereafter of his problems, hopes, modest successes?
Machebeuf, to the north, offered a complication in 1879 which resulted from the very growth of Colorado; for with the new Leadville mines far to the west in the Rockies, his duties were more arduous than ever—and he, lame and suddenly aging, was unable to be as active as he needed to be; and he asked Lamy to petition Rome to appoint a coadjutor bishop for the vicariate apostolic of Colorado to share his work.
Denver had settled into a steady rate of growth. Machebeuf had recently built a two-storey brick house for a new Loretto school which contained also meeting rooms for the parish sodalities; and two other new schools were opened in Pueblo and Conejos, again under the sisters from Kentucky. The Sisters of Charity hospital at Denver was going along nicely, and it was a “miracle” that these same sisters had already opened another in Leadville, where Machebeuf found it so difficult to go in his buggy.
Leadville was early Denver all over again—and if anything, even more active. The mines of California Gulch were marvellously rich, miners came swarming to the number of fifteen thousand in the winter of 1879, and by summer, Machebeuf thought there would be as many as thirty thousand. At ten thousand feet of altitude, the snows lasted late, and he saw people kneeling in the snowy street outside the single small church when there was no room for them inside during Mass. He began the construction of a brick church in 1879, named after the Annunciation, and people would boast that—using their mountain altitude—its steeple was the highest in the world. The whole town faced to the west a great range of mountains with year-round snow on its rocky peaks. Leadville stood on its height in a shallow cup and to the east, there were mild hills, and a bracing sense of Alpine meadows about the town, as quiet and peaceful as the streets were crowded and noisy. Coaches, waggons with linen hoods, carts, drays, men on foot in crowds, filled the streets. Leadville had its bank, its bookstore, and its Tabor Opera House, where Emma Abbott sang in Fra Diavolo, and disappointed the miners with her restrained presentation of the “bed scene,” and Oscar Wilde lectured on aesthetics to their respectful mystification.
And all about the willful business of the town were the shacks of the mines, with their sluices, heaps of tailings, little trackways for ore carts, and the obscure narrow, low tunnels which burrowed into the hillsides to bring forth wealth in such amount that after one single strike a certain miner and his partners were justifiably incorporated for twenty million dollars. It was clearly a region which must be serviced; and Lamy, followed by Salpointe, strongly recommended to Rome that Machebeuf be given his coadjutor—and indeed, Lamy proposed again the matter of raising Denver from a vicariate apostolic to an episcopal see. Candidates were nominated for bishop coadjutor and the Curia took the matter under unhurried advisement. Machebeuf made what journeys he could—preferably, now, by railroad, but even this had its vexations; for going by rail to his southern Colorado town of Alamosa to administer confirmation, he confidently left his luggage containing his cassock, mitre, crozier, the holy oils, and his episcopal seal, in the railroad station. The station burned to the ground overnight, and all that was left to Machebeuf was “his little seal,” with its engraved motto, Auspice Maria.
XII
GARDENER AND APOSTLE
1880–1885
i.
Relief
MACHEBEUF WAS NOT THE FIRST BISHOP of the Santa Fe province to ask for a coadjutor—Lamy had already done so in 1876, making an appeal which his two suffragan bishops had signed with him as they met in council. Supporting his request, he stated, “Reasons for asking this favor are the following: advanced age, because he is already 62 years of age; besides the petitioner’s health is not firm, which makes the visitation of his diocese barely possible. The visitation of the diocese in these days has to be made more frequently and thoroughly. The boundaries are so far flung and the faithful so widespread that to travel requires a long time, and is so difficult, that he alone cannot do all these things, together with regular administration to the needs of the faithful, which increase day by day. To this add the many ordinary duties—creation of new parishes and care of them. This requires quite a bit of study and preparation; to find and train new pastors and provide for their support.… I would like to add that the Most Reverend Vicar Apostolic of Arizona can hardly make the long arduous journey across deserts [between Arizona and Santa Fe] without endangering his life. In view of all this we hope that the Holy Father will accept our petition favorably which we most sincerely ask Your Eminence to convey to him.…”
He closed by nominating as coadjutor the pastor of the cathedral, Father Johannes Augustus Truchard of the famous bass voice. Lamy’s petition vanished into the labyrinths of the Vatican and for years there was no response.
There was none, either, to a proposal which he and his bishops made at the same time: this was for the establishment of a third vicariate apostolic under Santa Fe. It was to consist of the southern counties of Doñana, Grant, Lincoln, and El Paso. The first three belonged to New Mexico, the fourth to Texas. But all were u
nder the authority of Salpointe at Tucson, with a population of 90,000 persons. Las Cruces, roughly at the center of the district, could be the seat of the new bishop, who would minister to these lands far more readily than was possible either for Lamy or Salpointe. If any final resolution were now needed, the creation of the vicariate, which in the end would surely become a diocese, would also dispose of any lingering claim to the “Condado” of southern New Mexico and Arizona by the Mexican bishops.
Rome promptly replied with a routine request for the usual lists of candidates. Lamy sent none. The matter rested until he paid his last visit to Rome in 1878, and what then was more urgent for him was to be granted the appointment of a coadjutor to come to his aid. He asked “repeatedly” for this; for he felt himself gradually losing the strength which had served him so well for the years of encompassing his domain. Evidently he did not yet look like an old and incapable man—but he knew what effort of will it now took to meet even simple duties. He saw himself become forgetful in little matters. He must insure the succession at Santa Fe, and the continuation of what he had begun. Rome asked him for the usual nominations, then; he said he would comply; but meanwhile, he withdrew his earlier request for the new vicariate of the “Condado” and returned to Santa Fe.
In mid-winter 1880, the city was alarmed to hear that the archbishop was suddenly taken ill—seriously ill. For five weeks he was close to death, and ready for it. The last sacraments were given him. Mother Francesca stayed with him as often as possible—during one period of five days and nights when he was most ill, she scarcely left him. He was touched, and when feeling easier, he always called her “Marie.” But one day noticing that after attending to him she bathed her hands in an antiseptic solution, he turned indignant and cross, and told her formally, “Mother Francesca Lamy, go over there and get Hermana Xaviera (Sister Xavier) to come and wait on me!”—for a sister from Loretto remained at all times in the room next to his. The hospital Sisters of Charity came as experienced nurses to help him, but he sent them away. He preferred the Lorettines. Of these it was Sister Petra whom he kept by him above all others, though Sister Blandina declared that once when he refused his medicine, it was she herself who forced him to take it—”cowed his defiance,” as she put it, and declared “that he soon recovered.” In March the newspaper reported that he was resting “much easier last evening,” and finally in April, though “scarcely able to write, having been very ill for 5 weeks,” he told the Society at Lyon “thanks to God, I am still here.” In the same letter he reported the state of “terrible drought” which held the land, with great losses of animals, and severe suffering by people and priests.
But if his strength slowly returned, it was now evident that he would never again be as confident and effective as before. Again, in the following year, he “suffered for months,” and it had become “an absolute necessity” for him to have a time of rest and repose. “May God spare for a long time this prelate, so necessary to his flocks”—thus the vicar general Defouri.
As soon as he could write, Lamy again pressed Rome for the appointment of his coadjutor. His renewed arguments were both touching and powerful. Since his serious illness of 1880 he had been hardly able to apply himself to matters requiring serious attention. When he tried to go out on pastoral visits, he became ill. He cited again the immensity of his diocese and the hundred thousand people in his charge. He recalled the experiences of desert and plains and Indian hazards. He listed the progress made in all fields, and he gave again a set of names of those whom he recommended to come to his cathedral as aide and successor. They were the Jesuit J. M. Marra of Santa Fe, the French secular priest Peter Bourgade of New Mexico, and Father W. J. Howlett of Colorado (later the biographer of Machebeuf). All had their particular virtues, and if it was wondered why he had not proposed Salpointe, the reason was that he had informally asked Salpointe if he would serve, and Salpointe had asked to be excused.
One loving concern lay heavily upon Lamy in the choice of his successor. “Our Mexican population has quite a sad future. Very few of them will be able to follow modern progress. They cannot be compared to the Americans in the way of intellectual liveliness, ordinary skills, and industry; they will thus be scorned and considered an inferior race. If the bishop who will follow me has not lived among the Mexicans for a long time and if he should not show a strong interest in them, they will become disheartened. Seeing themselves on the one hand under American discipline and, on the other, imagining that the Americans prefer foreigners to them, their faith, which is still lively enough, would grow gradually weaker; and the consequences would be dreadful. The morals, manners, and customs of our unfortunate people are quite different from those of the Americans. With the best possible intentions, those who would not try to understand our [native] worshippers or would not become interested in their well-being, would have trouble in adapting to their spirit, which is almost too primitive.” All such reasons induced him, then, to ask for a Jesuit father, in particular one who had already had long experience in that land. Lamy really “loved the native people,” said one of them who became a priest in his service.
For himself, the archbishop hoped to resign and retire, and for his remaining years—he believed them to be few—he would keep only the revenue of two houses which he owned and which upon his death would return to the archdiocese. “I have always been poor,” he wrote to Lyon, “and I hope to die poor.’ He asked—once again—that the Pope would grant his petition. In support of it, he enlisted letters to Rome from Cardinal McCloskey of New York and Archbishop Wood of Philadelphia.
In April 1882, Lamy felt that he must meet an engagement to administer confirmations in the Red River Valley to the northeast of Santa Fe. Going out, as so often, on horseback, he arrived at San Miguel so ill with fever that he was unable to say Mass and only with much determination was he able to administer confirmation to a large class of children before he had to return to the house of Don Jorge Chaves and take to his bed. For two days he stayed there, in what were reported to be “agonies of pain”; but on the third day he left his bed and called on the editor of the Red River Chronicle, at his office. The editor took him home, and later declared in print, “Archbishop Lamy is a very entertaining visitor.” But he had also to add that “the venerable prelate is getting old; he cannot stand long travels over rough roads any more as in days gone by.” From Red River, Lamy had planned to extend his pastoral journey down to western Texas but he was forced to give it up and go back to Santa Fe. He did not know how much longer he could meet the land on its own terms.
How slow, how deliberate, the Roman bureaux! He told Simeoni of how he had had to abandon his visit to “a new part of this diocese,” and how when halfway there, he had become ill, and had had to “come back home.” And “if,” he begged, “if my petition won’t be granted soon, let me at least be allowed to ask the Holy See to give me authority to name one of my own priests, under faculties by the Sovereign Pontiff, to administer confirmation in those distant parts of the Diocese.” He also warned the Society at Lyon that for two years his strength had been waning, and that he found himself unable to apply himself to any serious affairs—even though in appearance he still seemed “robust” and able to carry out his usual journeys by horseback.
And now at last papers flowed back and forth between the Roman Congregation and the American prelates concerning the nominations Lamy had offered. Rome asked Lamy whether he would accept Salpointe as his coadjutor, whom he had not proposed to the Vatican. It was a sudden new direction, and Lamy at once telegraphed that he would “with great pleasure” accept Msgr Salpointe. (It turned out that it was Archbishop Gibbons of Baltimore who had nominated him directly to Rome.) Salpointe was, said Lamy, “the one most fit for this position,” and he now hoped for a swift confirmation of the appointment.
But the year went past, and most of the next, and Salpointe remained at Tucson—except for a brief visit to Rome to represent Lamy at a council of American archbishops called by Le
o XIII, who had exempted Lamy from attendance for age and infirmity.
Meanwhile, the succession to Salpointe in Arizona had to be determined before he could leave there to live at Santa Fe. His own new appointment was accordingly delayed. The complicated and drawn-out nominating process for a new bishop at Tucson once again was set in motion, with the usual three candidates, and the time-consuming circularization of bishops for their votes. In December 1883, Lamy pleaded with Salpointe: “You know yourself, Monseigneur, that not only my memory, but also my other mental faculties have much declined; the smallest serious effort, worries, cares, difficulties, exhaust me and make me ill. Knowing my reasons, please help me as much as you can. I will always be grateful to you …” and he went on to beg Salpointe to convince Rome of his condition, about which, Rome finally agreed that “no doubt can exist.”
On 7 April 1884, the Vatican notified Salpointe, and on the ninth, Lamy, that the appointment had been made by Leo XIII, and congratulations showered upon them. Salpointe was the coadjutor designate with right of succession. “As for myself,” replied Salpointe, “I do not know whether to congratulate myself for it, since I find myself already too highly placed for my weak talents.” His sentiments were not those of the usual expected humility—he had a pragmatic and sometimes acerb temperament, and meant just what he now said. In due course he was invested with the title of Archbishop of Anazarbe, and whenever his successor at Tucson should be appointed, Salpointe would in obedience move to Santa Fe; but meantime, he and Lamy agreed that it would be wise for him to remain in Arizona and himself preside over the orderly transfer of affairs there.