Mexico was the mother province of the US Claretians until 1922. In the 1880s the Claretians Missionaries in Spain decided that Mexico offered a good challenge, with its “faith as robust as oak trees” but hampered by “poor circumstances for religion.” The Spanish congregation established its first residence in Mexico City in 1887, and gradually …
“A Faith as Robust as Oak Trees”: Early Claretian Missions in Mexico Read More »
When readers of The Voice of St. Jude paged through the August 1935 magazine, many paused to examine the large black and white photo of a bishop flanked by four Kuna children, in front of thatched huts. The bishop, a bit corpulent, strains a bit at his black cassock, but smiles benignly notwithstanding the draining …
“With Rings in Their Noses”: Early Claretian Missions in Panama Read More »
On December 4, 2022, Mexican Catholics will mount the 91st annual Procession and Mass to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe in East Los Angeles. The tradition began in 1931, as the Claretians took on their third parish in Los Angeles: Our Lady of Solitude, or Soledad as everyone calls it. On that December 12, fervent …
As a grade school boy in South Chicago on the cusp of the Depression, Severino Lopez was a newsboy for the Chicago Herald Examiner. For a three-cent ticket, he enjoyed the Western movies at the Petes Theater. So inspired, he played cowboys with brother, “slapping the sides of our corduroy pants to imitate the sound …
From a South Chicago Boyhood to Claretian Missionary Read More »
Fiesta. Carnival. Kermesse. Jamaica. All of these titles describe the annual fundraising fairs at Latino parishes across the country. Since the 1910s the Claretian Missionaries and lay leaders in the US have organized these community-based events and they continue to do so today. St. John the Evangelist Church, a former Claretian parish in San Marcos, …
When the Claretian Missionaries celebrated Mass in Assembly on June 2, 2022, they heard the day’s necrology: the names and places of death of confreres from that date over the past century. These included Wenceslao Fernández who died in Sweetwater, Texas, in 1927. This young priest’s tragic death shook the congregation at the time and …
Three months later, on a sunny November day in 1936, the Claretians broke ground for the new seminary. As the St. Jude community recorded that day: “The ground was blessed and broken by his Excellency Bishop Preciado. Several pictures were taken both right after their arrival by the Grotto of St. Jude, and on the …
Two transplants from Spain, dressed in black clerical suits and collars, walked through Chicago’s bustling Loop on August 10, 1936. Fr. Aloysius Ellacuria, CMF, rector of the fledgling St. Jude Seminary, walked alongside Fr. Antonio Catalina, CMF, pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. They chatted, en castellano, about the business at hand: the purchase …
In the 1980s, Catholics in rural Martindale, Texas, recalled how their elders had regularly walked to their “second home”: Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. The Claretians erected the first Catholic Church there in 1908, with a school two years later. After fire destroyed the wooden structure in 1916, the Claretians raised the brick and stone …
Conducting research in the Claretian Missionaries Archive, I noticed two tall bookcases filled with hundreds of old books. Just the colors and leather bindings suggested these volumes dated back to the nineteenth century, maybe earlier. Now curious, I randomly pulled out a small book, a bit larger than a deck of playing cards. The soft …