Holy Cross in Mexico

by Bro. William Dunn, CSC

Paper presented in the 1998 Conference of the Congregation of Holy Cross

To Porfirio Diaz, present of Mexico, is attributed the lament, "Poor Mexico!  So far from God and so near to the United States."  But this paper means to show that members of the Congregation of Holy Cross have been helping Mexicans for over a century.  The Congregation took up work in the old Spanish Borderlands in 1870 when it accepted the invitation of Bishop Dubuis of Galveston to staff St. Mary's College in the island city.  Four years later, priests, brothers , and sisters of Holy Cross went o Austin where they took charge of St. Mary's Academy, and by the early 1880's had founded St. Mary's Church and St. Edward's College.  Both the college and the academy had boarding departments attended by many youngsters from Mexico.  An early bulletin of the college even carried a section in Spanish for Mexican parents to read.

Well before 1890 priests of Holy Cross were working in Central Texas with Mexican immigrants, mostly farm workers.  Over the years, the "Texas missions" turned out to be a major Holy Cross apostolate.  Today there are three mainly Hispanic parishes in the Diocese of Austin conducted by priests of Holy Cross.  It would seem that Mexico should have been one of the earliest foreign countries that Holy Cross took up work in.  A questioned frequently mulled over in the South-West Province is why Holy Cross undertook work in far-away Brazil years ago.  That work became the responsibility of the South-West Province when it first was formed as a vice-province in 1956.  The beginnings in Brazil do need to be recounted, but are not our business here.

   Father Frederick Schmidt, CSC, recalls clearly a stage of the process by which the community did finally go to Mexico.  He had taken the vow to go to the missions and as a seminarian had studied at the Foreign Mission Seminary.  However, instead of being given an assignment to Bangladesh when he was ordained in 1937, he was sent to Texas.  There he taught Spanish at St. Edward's University and began doing pastoral work on the Mexican missions around Austin.  Eventually he served at St. Helen's in Georgetown and for a longer time at St. Williams in Round Rock.  In the course of his pastoral work, he made pilgrimages to shrines of Our Lady in the United States and Mexico.  One of the favorite shrines of Texas Mexicans was San Juan de los Lagos near Brownsville, a replica of a shrine of the same name in Mexico.  He also went to with groups to Mexico and visited shrines there, including that of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Mexico City.  Father said that he probably made around thirty trips to Guadalupe.

   All of this increased his desire to serve in Mexico.  Then the first provincial of the Southern Province, Father Christopher J. O'Toole, in his visitation of Father Schmidt in 1971, asked Father if he had any suggestions as to how Holy Cross could be more apostolic.  "Yes," Father said, "We ought to have CSC's working in Mexico."  The provincial put the suggestion to his council, but they vetoed it on the grounds that CSC didn't have enough people to do it.  Then Father Schmidt asked for a sabbatical and was told he could have it if he found a substitute for himself.  He made a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, praying for the intention.  As a result, he got a substitute.

   The next thing was to find a place in Mexico where the bishop would welcome him.  He wanted a place that was known for having vocations.  He tried to get into Guanajuato, but the bishop was not interested.  The same thing with the bishop of San Luis Potosi.  Then someone suggested that he talk to the bishop of Valles.   The bishop accepted Father Schmidt, and he wound up at Ahuacatlan, a Mestizo village in the rainforest on the eastern slope of the Siuerra Madre Oriental, not far from Victoria, in eastern San Luis Potosi State.  He was warmly accepted by the people there.  With the help of benefactors in the United States and using local labor, the parish built a church, el Padre Jesus, which the bishop blessed in ceremonies on July 17, 1977.  Present for the occasion was a team of volunteers, including Holy Cross Brothers, from Austin.  The volunteers were mostly young people from Dolores and San Jose parishes in Austin.  Franciscan sisters from Dolores were also present.  They had taken the lead in organizing a summer catechetical program for thechildren of Padre Jesus. 

   As Father Schmidt at the age of ninety looks back at the years he spent in Mexico, he takes great satisfaction in the opportunity to be "just an instrument," he insists, "of Jesus and Mary."  In addition to his pastoral work he has been able to get cloistered nuns, Augustinian Recollects, for whom he has built a convent on the church grounds.  Since he retired as pastor, he has continued to work with the sisters and with the parish Legion of Mary.

   Father is happy to see that Holy Cross is expandingin Mexico, and he wants more CSC's to help meet the needs there and to get to know the wonderful Mexican people.

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