Tireless work and unshakeable faith

One hundred fifty years ago, on September 18, 1874, what we know today as the Diocese of Corpus Christi began as the Vicariate of Brownsville. Before the Vicariate was formed, its boundaries were under the umbrella of the Diocese of Galveston, which encompassed all of Texas. In the wake of the fight for Texas Independence, becoming a State, and weathering the Civil War, Texas was beset by a severe lack of clergy and consecrated religious. It was then necessary to recruit young, zealous missionaries to serve in this vast, sparse territory—so different from anything they had experienced. 
 
All we enjoy today as Catholics in this Diocese is due to the constant toil and unshakeable faith of these pioneering bishops and the men and women who worked and sacrificed beside them to glorify God by ministering to the faithful. They built shelters, churches, hospitals and schools; they celebrated Mass regardless of harsh conditions, fortifying tiny communities; and they administered the Sacraments to the hungry souls of South Texas, no matter how far they had to travel to find them. 
 Bishop Jean-Marie OdinBefore Texas’ independence, Texas had been under the ecclesial administration of the Church in Mexico. In 1842, all of Texas became a Vicariate Apostolic, with Rev. Jean-Marie Odin as Vice Prefect Apostolic.^[1] Bishop Odin was born in France but was ordained to the priesthood in Missouri. In 1840, he came to Texas to nurture the Catholic faithful. In describing Odin, noted Catholic historian of Texas Carlos Castaneda remarked: “Neither drought nor floods, neither lack of funds nor illness—not even threats of war—could long keep the indefatigable missionary from visiting his scattered flock.”^[2] 
 
 Odin began his work with only four priests at his disposal. This lack of priests made it difficult to minister to Catholics in the Diocese to evangelize non-Catholics. Catholics were scattered across Texas but started to form distinct colonies like Refugio and San Patricio. Because the Catholic population began to flourish enough to create new ecclesiastical boundaries, Texas became the Diocese of Galveston in 1847 with Odin as its head.^[3] 20 years of relentless toil profited Odin with 42 priests, dozens of new churches and chapels, and ten education facilities across South Texas.^[4] Of those who worked beside him, Odin said, “They all live in the greatest poverty and endure fatigues and privations of all kinds without a murmur.”^[5] Bishop Odin labored in Texas until the age of 61, when he was succeeded by his friend, a fellow Frenchman, Bishop Claude Marie Dubuis, in 1862.
 
In 1844, when Dubuis was still a new priest in France, he suffered a bout of tuberculosis. He made a vow to God that he would spend ten years preaching to non-believers if he were allowed to recover from the illness. Two years later, Dubuis’ opportunity came when Bishop Odin arrived to scout out French priests for his Texas mission.^[6] 
 Bishop Claude Marie DubuisDubuis began his work in Texas in 1846^[7]. His early days in Texas consisted of mastering the languages of his European-American flock in Castroville, just north of Austin. Some communities were so small they only consisted of five families. He traveled hundreds of miles to preach and administer sacraments; he slept on a cowhide in a hut infested with scorpions and wasted no time building a church for the people with his own hands. It was noted in an 1857 ledger that the people who knew the zealous priest loved, respected, and esteemed him.^[8] His dedication to the Texas mission made him a natural fit when it came time to choose the second bishop of the Diocese of Galveston. 
 
Several seminarians in Lyon, France, witnessed Bishop Odin consecrating his friend Dubuis to the Bishopric of Galveston and were inspired to join his cause. They and scores of other religious men and women followed Dubuis back to Brownsville, where he celebrated his first pontifical Mass, and then to Galveston. 
 
The Civil War had left Galveston in shambles when Bishop Dubuis arrived with his band of missionaries; he was met by a State afflicted by war and his Cathedral so full of bullet holes that he couldn’t celebrate mass there on rainy days. As they tried to leave the darkness of the Civil War behind them, Bishop Dubuis noted that the people of Texas “loved and respected” his European missionaries, who had quickly set to work to build up dozens of institutions to support the faithful—hospitals, orphanages, and churches.   
 
Vocations began to flourish under Dubuis’ leadership, but in 1866, he made another trip to Lyons to recruit more missionaries. Fr. Claude Jaillet was one of those brave volunteers who followed the bishop into the Texas wilderness, and it is through his written memories that we can glimpse the heroic faith and ceaseless works that allowed the Catholic Church to take root and struggle its way into the 20th century. 

 Fr. Claude JailletDubuis ordained Jaillet and some others before they set off to Galveston from France. Of the dozen men Dubuis enlisted from Lyon’s seminary, only a few survived their first few years in Texas. The man who was supposed to accompany Jaillet to his new assignment in San Diego became deathly ill in transit and died two days after reaching Corpus Christi. With the help of Fr. Gonnard, the pastor there, Jaillet arranged a funeral for his young companion. 
 
He then borrowed a horse and saddle and rode for two days to reach San Diego, his first parish mission. He knew neither Spanish nor English when he got there: “His Lordship sometime before had promised to keep me at Galveston to pick up some English, but after two days, he ordered me to pack up for San Diego. I knew as much about San Diego as about the man in the moon.”^[9] Within just a few weeks, he was able to speak some Spanish, and he started to collect small amounts of money to build a chapel for the tiny community. 
 
Jaillet often had to leave San Diego to assist with other missions and assignments throughout the Diocese. He would accompany Bishop Dubuis on his long journeys on horseback, working ceaselessly to hear confessions and record Confirmations being administered in the hundreds. He described a day when he was interrupted amid his nonstop record keeping: “To cap the climax when I was crushed by work, there came a Mexican on horseback on a sick call at 18 miles distance. What to do, Senor Obispo?” Jaillet wrote wryly in his historical sketch, recalling Dubuis’ relentless work ethic. “Of course, go to the sick.” So Jaillet dropped everything, attended to the sick, missed dinner, and only had time to work and pray before finally going to sleep at midnight. Some days, they would get very little food or sleep and rode their horses to exhaustion. The two men often slept on cowhides and used their saddles as pillows. ^[10] To this day, Jaillet is remembered as the “saddlebag priest of the Nueces.”