Lamy of Santa Fe (25 page)

San Francisco street, Santa Fe, much as Lamy first saw it in 1851. At the end of the street is the old adobe parish church of St Francis, which became Lamy's first cathedral,

A sketch of Santa Fe by an anonymous soldier in a company morning report, c. 1846–1850. The crenellated towers of the old parish church are indicated to the right of center Lamy had never received the answer—the mails were notoriously inefficient.

The south of the Santa Fe plaza, looking east on San Francisco street, with parked caravan waggons attended by traders and citizens

Characteristic nineteenth-century adobe houses in Santa Fe, with haystack, bare ground, conttonwoods and poplars and a faint line of moutains beyond—the pastoral look within the city

The plaza at La Mesilla, with its church and famous twin bells, trader waggons on the Santa Fe–Chihuahua Trail, and a woodsman with his burro-load of wood. From an anonymous painting of the period, c. 1860s

The plaza at Santa Fe, showing its soldier's monument, a concert in progress by the 9th U.S. Cavalry band, cavaliers, the fountain playing. From an anonymous painting of the period

The stone reredos carved in Santa Fe originally for the Spanish garrison chapel (castrense) in the plaza, seen here as later installed in the old cathedral in 1859. It is now the altarpiece in the noble modern church of Cristo Rey, designed by John Gaw Meem.

The chapel of Our Lady of Light in the convent of the Sisters of Loretto, completed in 1881. Its French architect had in mind the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris. To the left is a glimpse of the sisters' academy, to the right a corner of their convent

The exterior of Villa Pintoresca, Lamy's retreat in the Tesuque Canyon, about three miles north of Santa Fe. It was one of two places he loved best (the other was his famous garden in twon) and there he lived when he retired.

Villa Pintoresca consisted of only two rooms—a bedroom-study, and this very small chapel where Lamy said his daily Mass, often served by students from St Michael's College whom he would invite for a day in the country

Panorama showing the stone cathedral of St Francis under construction. Lamy laid the cornerstone (which was stolen a week later) in 1869. The north tower is shown rising. The old adobe transept of the previous cathedral can be seen, and to its left the early St Vincent's hospital, and a portion of the convent and orphanage of the Sisters of Charity, c. 1880s.

Lamy did not live to see the new cathedral completed; but he brought to it his inherited style of the Romanesque, with its Moorish echoes, and he had the satisfaction of seeing installed in the finished north tower the bells of the old cathedral

Lamy's letter was the first notice he, Zubiría, had had concerning Lamy's new mission.

Rome had never notified him?

Never. The only word Durango had received of his supersession was Lamy's letter from San Antonio, and, in fact, as a Vatican memorandum noted, Zubiría had written in protest to the Pope, declaring that such notification from another bishop instead of from the Holy See, and, in fact, from a council of the North American bishops acting as though they had the authority to do what was Rome's to do, was hardly to be regarded as official. If the Holy Father had answered this protest, Zubiría had never received the answer. There was, to be sure, always the possibility that one had been sent, and that it had been lost in transit. Moreover, Zubiría had, however mistakenly, assumed that Lamy would have gone to Rome to make his duty to the Pope before proceeding to New Mexico. Out of such a visit, official notification might have come, in case none had already been sent. Again, if bulls had been sent to Durango, they, too, might have been lost in the mails.