Planting the seeds of faith

When Pope Pius X issued his papal bull erecting the Diocese of Corpus Christi in 1912, he was affirming the reality of the church in south Texas, which had grown from the seeds of faith planted and nurtured over many years.

The story of the Catholic family in south Texas began with arrival of European explorers in the 1500s. While exploration offered the promise of wealth and fame to many, to the Franciscan missionaries, it was an opportunity to plant the seeds of faith in a new field.

Among the most famous of the missionaries to Texas is Venerable Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús. Born in Valencia, Spain Father Margil was assigned to the missionary College of Santa Cruz de Queretaro after his ordination at age 25 in 1683. He founded the Colegió de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Zacatecas, México, in 1716. Donned in the faith at this institution, approximately 120 Franciscans labored amongst the early Texas natives.

Father Margil traveled to east Texas in 1716 to set up the Franciscans missions near present day Nacogdoches. He founded Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo in San Antonio in 1720. It earned the title of “Queen of the Missions” because of its architectural beauty and its role as a cultural and social center. Today it is more commonly known as Mission San José.

Three of the Texas missions—Mission Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo, Mission Rosario and Mission Nuestra Señora del Refugio—were all established within the area of what was to be the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

While Franciscan missionaries worked in most of the initial area that became the Diocese of Corpus Christi, diocesan and secular clergy active during the Spanish period of exploration and development are responsible for religious growth of the area that marked the western boundary of the diocese at the time of its erection.

In 1755, Tomas Sánchez founded Laredo, originally consisting of only four Catholic families who worshipped in a small wooden chapel. The village developed into an important city because of its location on the road from Monterrey to San Antonio. Secular priests led services in a small mission chapel until 1778 when the first stone structure was erected to accommodate more than 200 families. In 1789, the Bishop of Guadalajara, whose jurisdiction extended into that area, elevated the chapel to San Agustin Parish.

San Agustin has the distinction of being the second oldest parish administered by diocesan priests in what is now the Southwest United States. Only San Fernando Parish in San Antonio precedes it.

In 2000, San Agustin Parish, which had long held the nickname of La Catedral, did in fact become the cathedral when the western counties of the Diocese of Corpus Christi became a part of the newly erected Diocese of Laredo.

While Laredo gained prominence, the missions near the eastern coast of south Texas became centers not only for the Christian formation of the local natives, but also for further exploration and colonization. It was from Espíritu Santo, at its second location on the banks of the Guadalupe River, that Spanish colonizer José de Escandón commissioned an expedition to map the area in 1747.

Captain Don Joaquín Orobió y Bastera of the Presidio de La Bahía in present-day Goliad, along with Fray Juan José González, was sent for this purpose, and it is from this expedition that the first detailed descriptions of the Gulf Coast area and the eastern coast of the Diocese of Corpus Christi were made.

To Bastera also is due the honor of describing fully and accurately for the first time the present Bay of Corpus Christi, which he named Bahía de San Miguel Arcángel (Bay of St. Michael the Archangel). It was not until the expedition of Colonel Ortiz Parilla in 1766 that the bay at the mouth of the Nueces River was referred to as Corpus Christi Bay. This name was eventually chosen for the small settlement established on the banks of that bay and of the diocese erected by Pope Pius in March of 1912.

The last mission the Franciscans established remains to this day a part of the Diocese of Corpus Christi and a reminder of those early years and the sacrifices made by many when the Catholic faith was first planted in what became south Texas. In 1793, the Franciscans began Mission Nuestra Señora del Refugio. Two years later, the mission was moved to the banks of what is today called Mission River.

In January 1795, when Franciscan Father Manuel Silva accompanied Spanish soldiers from La Bahia who were sent to establish the mission in its new location, they were also beginning the foundations of Our Lady of Refuge Parish in present Refugio, Texas. Father Silva built a stone church and began an attempt to plant the seeds of faith among the Karankawa Indians who showed little interest and drifted back to their ancestral nomadic ways.

Because of the Karankawa’s lack of interest, as well as the turmoil of the Mexican war of independence from Spain, the mission was abandoned and neglected from 1820 to 1830.

With the establishment of the new Republic of México and the initial arrival of Irish immigrants, the mission received new life. Its property was turned over to the Bishop of Linares in 1830, and he appointed the first diocesan pastor to what then became the parish of Nuestra Señora del Refugio.

Over the years, the site played a role in the Texas Revolution and witnessed the establishment of a school by the Sisters of Mercy and the erection of new sanctuaries.

The present church, blessed by Bishop Peter Verdaguer on April 24, 1901, rests on the same location as the original mission.

It is a living memorial to those missionaries and early settlers who came to south Texas with all its challenges and sought to plant and nurture the seeds of the Catholic faith.