Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/351

 FRIARS

299

FRIARS

honour of St. Francis. A missionary college for the training of missionaries for the Indians was erected in the same city in 1755. Distant Patagonia saw the first Friars Minor in 1578. There are no reports ex- tant.

The Franciscans first landed in the Philippines on 24 June, 1577. Nine years later they had erected six monasteries and reported fourteen missions among the natives. These houses were united in the prov- ince of San Gregorio in 1586.

P\xtlier Pedro Melgarejo appears to have been the first Franciscan to enter Mexico. He arrived during the siege of the capital in 1521, but returned to Spain in the next year to defend Cortes. The first mission- ary work among the Indians was done by the three Flemish Franciscans, Fathers Juan de Tecto and Juan de Aora anil Brother Pedro de Gante, who arrived in

1523. Father Martin de Valencia, with eleven friars, came from Spain to the Mexican capital on 13 May,

1524. These are known as the Twelve Apostles of Mexico. The impression they made all over New Spain was so deep that the natives were accustomed to date occurrences from the arrival of these twelve friars, under the caption "the year when the Faith came". Two months after landing, Father Martin, as Apostolic delegate, convoked the first ecclesiastical council in the New World. Five secular priests, seven- teen Franciscans, six secular doctors of canon law, and Hernando Cortes himself took part in the deliberations which opened on 2 July, 1524. On the same occasion the Franciscans were organized in the custody of the Holy Gospel, the first on the mainland, and the whole country divided into four missionary districts, which were Mexico, Texcoco, Huexocingo, and TIascala. To each of these Father Martin assigned four friars. The secular priests as usual confined themselves to the spiritual wants of the Spaniards. In connexion with the principal convents the Fathers conducted the first schools in Mexico for Indian boys. A part of the build- ings was generally set apart for the boys who made their home with the friars. Oftentimes as many as 600 and 800 children received instruction, food, and cloth- ing from these religious. The instruction, besides Christian doctrine, comprised reading, writing, sing- ing, instrimiental music, and mechanical arts. These institutions were the first free boarding and manual labour schools on the American Continent. One of the Franciscan pupils, Father Alonzo de Molina, O.F.M., whose mother was a Spaniard, in 1555 published the "Vocabulario Castellan-Mexicano". This work, con- taining 518 folio pages, is still regarded as a standard. Father de Gante himself translated hymns into the language of the Aztecs. The spiritual fruit was so abundant that Soloranzo y Pereira, according to Father Harold, claims that every one of the original twelve friars baptized no fewer than 100,000 Indians. Down to the year 1531, according to a report sent to the general chapter at Toulouse, one million natives had been baptized. The first high school for Indian youths was erected by the Franciscans at the Indian town of Tlatelulco, now a part of the capital. In the course of time the number of friars grew so rapidly all over Mexico that about the close of the sixteenth cen- tury the following fully organized provinces existed: Santo Evangelio de Mexico, established in 1534; San Jos6 de Yucatan, organized in 1559 ; San Pedro y San Pablo de Michoacan, formed in 1565; San Francisco de Zacatecas, organized in 1603 ; San Diego de Mexico (Alcantarines), established in 1606; and Santiago de Xalisco, organized in 1608. Fifty years later these provinces together reported two hundred monasteries and convents.

The peculiar character of the natives demanded missionaries specially trained. For this reason Apos- tolic colleges or seminaries were founded independent of the jurisdiction of the provinces but with the sanc- tion of the Holy See. The first missionary college

established and governed under rules approved by the pope was opened in the grand monastery of Santa Cruz at Quer^taro, which for that purpose was .set apart by the province of Michoacan in 1682. Another was founded at Guadalupe, Zacatecas, in 1707, by the Venerable Antonio Margil, the Apostle of Texas and Guatemala, and a third at the monastery of San Fer- nando in the City of Mexico in 1734. These three col- leges furnished the heroic men who Christianized the Indians of Texas, Arizona, Sonora, and California. Other missionary colleges were those of Orizaba, Zapopan near Guadalajara, Pachuea in the State of Mexico, and Cholula in the State of Puebla. At the present time, owing to the anti-Christian laws prevail- ing in Mexico, which forbid religious to live in com- munity, the Franciscan provinces and colleges have dwindled so that the number of friars scarcely exceeds the number of convents in the days of religious free- dom. Mexico enjoys the distinction of having pos- sessed the first nuns in America. The first convent of Tertiary Sisters was founded at the capital as early as 1525 for the purpose of teaching Indian girls. The Poor Clares were brought over from Spain m 1530 by the wife of the great conqueror Cortes. They occupied convents in the City of Mexico, Texcoco, and at Hue.xocingo. These Sisters conducted academies for the education of young girls, who in turn made them- selves useful as teachers or Tertiary Sisters, or in taking care of altars in their native villages. The first Bishop of Mexico was the learned Juan de Zumdrraga of the Franciscan Order. He had been nominated by Charles V on 12 December, 1527, and approved by Pope C'lement VII. It was he who, late in 1537 or early in 1538, brought the first printing press to Mex- ico. The first book, a compendium of the Christian doctrine in both the Mexican and Spanish languages, was printed by his order in 1539. From that date to the close of the year 1600, 118 books were published in Mexico. Of this number the Franciscans alone brought out forty-one, comprising works on Christian doctrine, morals, history, and Indian-Spanish vocab- ularies or dictionaries. The remainder were published by Dominicans, Augustinians, secular priests, and others. Mexico also produced two Franciscan saints: St. Philip of Jesus, martyred in Japan, and Blessed Sebastian, whose remains are venerated at Puebla. From the earliest days the numerous Friars Minor were engaged in literary work. The most noted writers are Toribio de Benavente (Motolinia), Alonzo de Molina, Bernardino de Sahagiin, and Geronimo de Mendieta in the sixteenth century; Augustfn de Vetancurt, Antonio Tello, Juan de Torquemada (the Livy of New Spain), Balta.sar de Medina, and Pablo de Beaumont in the seventeenth century; Francisco de Ayeta, Isidro Felix de Espinoza, Jose Arlegui, Her- menegildo de Vilaplana, Juan Domingo Arricivita, and Francisco Palou in the eighteenth century.

Father Juan Sudrez (Juarez, Xu;irez), one of the Twelve Apostles of Mexico, was the first PVanciscan to set foot within the present territory of the United States. He had been named Bishop of Florida and Rfo de las Palmas in 1527 along with the first Bishop of Mexico, and on 14 April, 1528, landed on the north- western coast of Florida with three companions, for the purpose of converting the Indians. The whole expedition, which consisted of six hundred men under Pdnfilo de Narvaez, was destroyed, and only four men are known to have escaped. The bishop-elect and his companions were most probably drowned in the gulf. In 1538 the Franciscan Juan de Torres, who had joined De Soto with ei^ht secular priests, two Domin- icans, and one Trinitarian, perished in the same terri- tory like the others of that unhappy expedition. The Dominicans and Jesuits by turns made heroic efforts to win the natives, but after several of their number had been massacred by the savages, they abandoned the task as hopeless. The Friars Minor, beginning