Above: Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Conca. The Franciscan presence in Mexico is enormous. Visit any city or town in the country and you are sure to see a Franciscan monastery; in many cases these are massive edifices which are pretty hard to miss. The one in Izamal, Yucatan, for example, is so…
Photo: Catedral de Santa María de la Sede, Seville, Spain. Three hundred years ago yesterday, on April 25, 1722, the last of the Christian Fathers of antiquity was proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope Innocent XIII: St. Isidore of Seville. Seventeen years after his death in 636, he was recognized by the the 8th…
August 13, 1807, was a night to remember in the Dominican convent of Jesus Maria in Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico. The church of Jesus Maria is a five minute walk from the mammoth Guadalajara Cathedral and the zocalo (the central plaza of the city). Guadalajara is in the western part of the country in…
Father Miguel Pro could have said “No.” His Jesuit superior ordered him back to Mexico for his health. After three unsuccessful stomach operations the superior thought that a return to his homeland would aid in his recovery. It is likely that the Superior was not aware of the perilous state of the country at that…
Recently, the head of France’s Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort, said that the Seal of Confession should not take precedence over French law (dealing with sex crimes against children). This scandalous statement was the exact opposite of what he had said earlier. What made him change his mind? Well, could it be because he had been summoned…
“In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” a chant familiar to every school-aged child in the United States. Well, let us hope that this is still the case! It marks the event, of course, in which the Italian-born navigator, Christopher Columbus, departed from Spain and discovered the Americas. An event of enormous…
In February 1917, before Our Lady of Fatima, and before the Soviets took over Russia, the Communists targeted Mexico first. In it we find the first socialist constitution in the history of the world (Royal, Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, 15). The Mexican government knew that a direct confrontation with the Church would be…
There is one business that is thriving in this pandemic: The dog-breeding business. Of all things! This I did not know. I discovered this one day as I was walking along the pier at our lake-side city. A popular spot with dog-walkers. Of which we have a great many in our town. As I struck…
The Yucatan. To winter-wearied North Americans, the name revives images of turquoise seas, powder-white beaches, and ancient Maya ruins. The Yucatan Peninsula is alleged to have one of the richest stores of archaeological ruins in the world and is home to the Maya Indians, the largest indigenous group in North America. The peninsula is comprised…
Who doesn’t love a circus? The acrobats. The clowns. The trapeze artists. And the inhabitants of San Juan de los Lagos in the state of Jalisco were no exception. They were abuzz with excitement. The circus was coming to town! The year was 1623. A family of trapeze artists had just arrived in town, en…
There is a strange new vocabulary which dominates the evening news, night after night: “Variants; ‘compulsory jabs’; Moderna; Pfizer; mRNA vaccinations; Astra Zeneca; digital passports; ‘needles-in-arms’.” And as if that were not enough there is the ubiquitous Doctor Fauci. At some point you have to wonder if the fellow is bi-locating. He seems to be…
