By Msgr. Larry J. Droll
The term “new evangelization” was popularized by Saint Pope John Paul II to encourage Catholics to spread the gospel message and invite people into the community of the Catholic Church. For example, he wrote in The Church in America (1999) about a new evangelization—“new in ardor, methods and expression” (#6). He urged an encounter with the Risen Christ, present in the life of the Church and calling people to conversion, communion and solidarity (#3).
There have been “new evangelizations” in this sense, in what is now the territory of the Diocese of San Angelo, in every century since Christians set foot in this area.
In 1528, Cabeza de Vaca and three men were shipwrecked near Matagordo on the Gulf Coast of Texas. They walked across what is now Texas to get to Mexico. Historians have shown two possible routes that would have brought them into the area now known as the Diocese of San Angelo. One route follows the Colorado River north from Matagordo until it intersects with the Concho River, extending west into the Middle Concho tributary. At one time the Colorado River was known as “San Clemente” and the Concho River was known as “Rio de Nueces” (Pecans).
The other route shows Cabeza de Vaca traveling through what are now Pecos and Terrell counties.
There are stories of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions praying with the Indians they met along the way. Some people were healed through their prayers. Cabeza de Vaca reported, “Our method…was to bless the sick, breathe upon them, recite a Pater Noster and Ave Maria, and pray earnestly to God our Lord for their recovery. When we concluded with the Sign of the Cross, He willed that our patients would directly spread the news that they had been restored to health.”
In 1541, the conquistador Coronado may have traveled through the San Angelo or Big Spring areas in his search for the “Cities of Gold.” His advance party was led by Franciscan friar Marcos de Niza and there may have been other padres involved in the large expedition.
In the next century, the new evangelization began with the appearance of a “Lady in Blue” bringing the good news of Christ and the Church to the Jumano Indians at the confluence of the three branches of the Concho River. She was Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda in Spain, whose habit included a blue mantle. On the basis of her testimony and the reports of the Jumanos, it is believed that she bi-located in prayer to the New World during the 1620s. She spoke of evangelizing the native people and described them accurately. She said she communicated to them in Spanish, but they understood her in their own language (like the Pentecost miracle).
Sor María instructed the Jumanos to find the Franciscan friars and invite them to come to the Concho Valley to baptize those who had heard the Good News. And so it was that some Jumanos went to Ysleta Pueblo (near Albuquerque, New Mexico) to make the request. In 1629, Fray Juan Salas and Fray Diego Lopez and three soldiers came to the campgrounds at the confluence of the Conchos and met 2,000 Jumanos. They baptized many in the short time they were there.
In 1630, Fray Alonso de Benavides, overseer of the missions in New Mexico, journeyed to Spain and interviewed Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda. Her descriptions of the visits to the New World are recorded in his Memoriales.
In 1631 Fray Juan Salas and Fray Juan de Ortega spent six months on the Concho River. A historical marker commemorating their missionary activity is found in San Angelo on Rio Concho Drive just west of Bell Street.
Just ten years after her death, Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda was declared “venerable” by Pope Clement X, in honor of her heroic life of virtue. The cause of her beatification of is currently underway in Rome. Her incorrupt body lies in a chapel of the Conceptionists convent in Ágreda, Spain, where she served as abbess for many years. She wrote many books, the most important of which is The Mystical City of God.
In 1684, Fray Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and Fray Nicolas Lopez came from the pueblo near El Paso, also called “Ysleta,” to establish Mission San Clemente, near the place where the Concho River joins the Colorado River. The Colorado was called the San Clemente River at the time. The mission was founded at the request of the Jumano Indians, who desired Christianity and the friendship of the Spanish. The building was probably constructed of logs, its lower story serving as a chapel and its upper story as a lookout post. Though they stayed only briefly, the padres baptized several thousand Indian allies. Finally, being attacked by hostile Apaches, Mendoza and his men returned to El Paso, about six months after they had left there.
This Mission San Clemente is probably the one recorded on the rock cliffs along the Concho River, near present day Paint Rock. The pictographs depict men in robes, Indians, a church, and six and a half moons (months).
The new evangelization in the 1700s came with the establishment of the Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba in what is now Menard County. The Spanish built a presidio there and in 1757 the Franciscans established the mission to serve the Lipan Apaches. They began their evangelization and celebration of the sacraments, as well as gathering the Apaches in community around the mission.
On March 16, 1758, the Comanche Indians, enemies of the Apaches, attacked the mission and burned it down. Two Franciscan priests were killed, Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros and Fray Jose Santiesteban. The third priest, Fray Miguel de Molina, was wounded but escaped. A number of mission Indians were massacred as well. Not long after, a painting was done to commemorate the Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba and the massacre.
The priests who died are popularly acclaimed as martyrs for the Christian cause, having given witness to Christ by their very lives.
Following Texas Independence from Mexico in 1836, the economy and settlement of Texas began to develop rapidly. By 1857, the Butterfield Overland Trail came from Kansas City, through Abilene, Robert Lee (Fort Chadbourne), across the Concho River to the Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. The Civil War was fought 1861-1865, with Fort Concho in San Angelo being founded in 1867. Ranching was beginning as a local industry and Ben Ficklin was established as the Tom Green County seat.
The new evangelization began in earnest. The first baptisms at Fort Concho are recorded in 1872 and 1873. In 1871, the deed for St. Joseph Church in Fort Stockton was prepared for the Bishop Claude M. Dubois, Bishop of Galveston, whose diocese covered all of Texas then. Priests began to visit there in 1872. It took until 1875 to complete the formalities of the deed; that year is known as the beginning of the parish.
In 1874, Fr. Mathurin Pairier began to visit the San Angelo area. Developer Bart J. DeWitt deeded to Fr. Pairier the “Catholic Block” on September 22, 1874; this is now the site of Sacred Heart Cathedral. Fr. Pairier baptized Frederico Jacquez on May 31, 1881.
On February 9, 1880, property was obtained for a Catholic church in Ben Ficklin, although that community was destroyed by flood in 1882.
The “Catholic Block” in San Angelo began to be developed with the construction of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in 1884, at the corner of Chadbourne and Beauregard Streets.
The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word from San Antonio arrived in 1887 to start the Catholic School “Immaculate Conception Academy” on the Catholic Block.
Meanwhile in other parts of what is now the Diocese of San Angelo, parishes were beginning to spring up, as new efforts of evangelization continued. The extension of the railroad made much of the following activity possible.
In 1881, Fathers Anastatius Peters and Boniface Peters arrived at Grelton (later known as Marienfeld, then as Stanton) and established St. Joseph’s Parish. The Sisters of Divine Providence came to Stanton to provide Catholic education during 1884; they were replaced by Sisters of Mercy from San Francisco in 1894. The school operated until 1938, when it was destroyed by a tornado.
The first Mass in Midland was held in 1882 and the cornerstone of St. Ann’s Church was laid in 1896.
Big Spring’s first recorded baptism took place in 1883.
Sanderson’s missionary activity began in 1860, although the first church wouldn’t be built until 45 years later.
The first Catholic wedding was held in Abilene in 1884 and Sacred Heart was established as the first parish in 1891.
Many parishes and missions were established in the new century throughout the area now known as the Diocese of San Angelo.
Fire destroyed the wooden Immaculate Conception Church in San Angelo, leading to the 1906 construction of a red brick church on the corner of Beauregard and Oakes Streets; it was named Sacred Heart.
More Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio arrived in 1910 to start St. John’s Hospital in San Angelo. Abilene also had a Catholic Hospital opening in 1940, operated by the Sisters of Divine Providence of San Antonio.
A big event for Catholic evangelization took place on October 11, 1961, when the Diocese of San Angelo was established by Saint Pope John XXIII. The thirty-four county diocese was comprised of territory taken mostly from what by that time had become the Diocese of Amarillo, but also some counties from the Dallas-Fort Worth, El Paso, and Austin dioceses.
The red brick Sacred Heart Church had just been replaced by a larger modern church and it became Sacred Heart Cathedral. Most Rev. Thomas Drury was the first bishop and Bishop Thomas Tschoepe, the second bishop.
During the time of the third bishop, Most Rev. Stephen Leven, the diocese expanded its clergy by training and ordaining a large class of permanent deacons.
A new effort at evangelization took place during the ministry of the fourth bishop of San Angelo, Most Rev. Joseph Fiorenza, with the dedication of Christ the King Retreat Center in San Angelo in 1983, a place of spiritual renewal and growth. It was during this time that the Diocese of San Angelo ceded five counties to the new Diocese of Lubbock.
Several movements have flourished which have given new impetus to evangelization in the Diocese of San Angelo. In the 1950s, the Cursillo, a weekend renewal of Church teaching in Spanish, originally from Spain, began to be offered in the Diocese of San Angelo. The first Cursillo offered in English in the United States took place at St. Joseph Parish in San Angelo in 1961.
The SEARCH program, a weekend program of evangelization for teenagers, was begun in 1970 and continues to this day.
The Catholic Charismatic Renewal began to provide a deepened experience of God through the Holy Spirit, beginning in Midland about 1968 and moving throughout the diocese.
The fifth bishop of the diocese was Most Rev. Michael Pfeifer, OMI, serving from 1985 to 2013. As with many areas in the USA, the number of priests, both diocesan and those from religious orders, was falling. In order to continue evangelization and pastoral ministry to the people of the diocese, long range plans for coping with this crisis were made: re-structuring parishes, welcoming international clergy, offering various options for professional development of laity in theology and pastoral care, and naming a full-time vocation director. Bishop Pfeifer brought Renew, a movement that forms small faith communities at the parish level to foster spiritual renewal and evangelization. During his tenure, the evangelization outreach to prisons was expanded, including St. Dismas Retreats and the Ministry of the Third Cross. He will always be remembered for his passionate proclamation of the “gospel of life.”
Responding to Saint Pope John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization in The Church in America, a partnership (“hermanamiento”) began in 2001 between dioceses of Texas and Honduras. The partnership began with a response to Hurricane Mitch; but it progressed rapidly into developing enduring relationships among the dioceses and participants. The Dioceses of San Angelo and Tyler in Texas are in a partnership with the Dioceses of San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba. The pope’s letter called for “developing bonds of communion with the local Churches in other areas of America through education, the exchange of information, fraternal ties between parishes and dioceses, and projects involving cooperation and joint intervention in questions of greater importance, especially those affecting the poor” (#37). In the encounter with one another, said Saint John Paul II, we encounter Christ.
ACTS retreats, weekends of evangelization, were brought to the Diocese of San Angelo in March 2006, with the Women’s ACTS retreat of St. Ann’s in Midland, held at Christ the King Retreat Center. This new method of evangelization has spread to many parishes of the diocese.
Under the leadership of Bishop Michael Sis, consecrated on January 27, 2014, there has been a new emphasis given to evangelization in campus ministry and vocation promotion. A Diocesan Mission Council has been established to promote missionary involvement, “across the sea and across the street.” He is calling for a new emphasis in young adult outreach, as well, for those age 18-39.
In century after century, the Holy Spirit of God has provided one “new evangelization” after another, to attract people to Christ and to the Catholic Church. In this article we have traced many of the institutional developments and new efforts at evangelization in each age.
In the ministry of Pope Francis, we hear a call for Catholic individuals to personally become “missionary disciples” to share The Joy of the Gospel. We can do so in thousands of ways, individually and as a part of dynamic groups and parishes. We are to be a “church always on mission.”