Description
THE DIOCESE OF SANTA FE With the concurrence of the Pope, the Bishops set about deciding who should be named to the newly designed bishopric. Father John Baptist Lamy of Covington, Kentucky was overwhelmingly recommended and duly named the new bishop by Pope Pius IX. He was consecrated at Saint Peter Cathedral in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 24, 1850, and immediately set out for the long journey to his new diocese. He arrived in Santa Fe on August 9, 1851, to be greeted by a crowd of many thousands, the territorial governor, James Calhoun, and ranks of Indian dancers in native costume who performed in groups along the way. They all accompanied him to the Church of St. Francis, which was to be his cathedral, where he immediately prepared for, and said Mass. He soon traveled to Durango, Mexico, to present his documents of appointment to the bishop there and upon his return set about to become acquainted with his diocese of about 236 thousand square miles -larger than his native France -and to make plans for building schools, convents and to recruit priests in order to eliminate the native ignorance as he found it and to improve the moral character of the people. From the time of his arrival, he deplored the adobe Church with a dirt floor that was his cathedral and planned for a new one of proper construction to take its place. After about 18 years of trials and problems in the new land, he was finally able to lay a cornerstone in 1869 to build a stone Church completely...