Articles of faith: 'New Mexican' chronicled life, death of Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy and quest for Catholic reform

Feb. 4—Six thousand people filled the Cathedral of St. Francis the morning of Feb. 16, 1888 for a four-hour funeral service.

The Mass honored Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who had died of pneumonia several days before.

"This man did not prate of reform, he effected it," The New Mexican wrote of Lamy in an evocative report later that day, detailing how "sadness was depicted in every countenance" at the lavish memorial.

"To rehearse all that he has done and suffered might well fill a book," the story said of Lamy, easily one of the most influential individuals in New Mexico's long history. It was a prescient observation about a man who decades later would become the subject of one of the most famous works in Western literature.

As the first bishop, and later archbishop, of Santa Fe after New Mexico became a U.S. territory following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Lamy revitalized a Catholicism he viewed as having become stagnant since Spanish colonizers originally brought their faith to the New World in the 1600s.

He left an indelible mark on the religious and educational paths of the region and was hagiographied in the pages of Willa Cather's classic 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. But his efforts to create a more European-style Catholic Church were not universally beloved during his lifetime.

"He's very controversial," said state historian Rob Martinez. "Many Catholics find in him a hero. Many Catholics think he's a bit of a villain."

Martinez is a descendant of the Rev. Antonio Martinez of Taos, who clashed with Lamy over control of New Mexico's Catholics, causing a schism that led Lamy to excommunicate Martinez in 1858. Rob Martinez said the conflict stemmed from Lamy's discomfort with much of the Indigenous- and Spanish-influenced folk traditions of Northern New Mexico. They did not align with Lamy's view of Catholicism.

"He was a very astute person but he had a really hard time dealing with the people of Northern New Mexico, as many priests and governors before him and since have had," Martinez said with a laugh. "But that tension was there and it's been with us ever since."

Lamy's most visible legacy is the vast and iconic Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, construction of which he spearheaded and tirelessly advocated for until his death.

Lamy is buried beneath its floor.

The Romanesque Revival-style structure was built around La Parroquia, an adobe church built on the same site as an older church destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The European-style cathedral is emblematic of Lamy's efforts to reshape New Mexico's Catholicism, Martinez said.

"They built the cathedral around that old church and on top of it, so they could still keep having mass," Martinez said. "And then when they were done, they tore it into pieces and took it out, piece by piece, out the front door except for that little side chapel with La Conquistadora."

The New Mexican's story on Lamy's funeral states the existence of the cathedral, which was elevated to a basilica in 2005, "is due entirely to his perseverance."

Lamy traveled far and wide to raise money for the cathedral's construction, including going to France to solicit funds in 1877 two years after becoming archbishop in 1875.

At one point, he raffled off his carriage at a fair to raise funds for construction, and at age 70 embarked on a horseback trip throughout part of Mexico to solicit funds, according to former Museum of New Mexico director Bruce Ellis' book Bishop Lamy's Santa Fe Cathedral.

Consecration of the cathedral, which took place in 1887 while construction was still underway, received just a short mention in next day's edition of The New Mexican.

"This is one of the costliest church edifices in the country and will stand for ages a monument to the untiring energy of Bishop Lamy, under whose ministrations the building was erected," the newspaper wrote.

The cathedral was not dedicated until 1895, seven years after Lamy's death and "twenty-six years after its first cornerstone was laid," Ellis wrote.

Ellis' book, which draws on newspaper accounts of the time, notes The New Mexican's coverage of Lamy's ongoing attempts to raise money for the cathedral's construction, which stopped and started on several occasions due to a shortage of funds.

Lamy also facilitated the construction of the Loretto Chapel, which has a Gothic Revival architectural design styled after the Sainte-Chapelle chapel in Paris.

Lamy himself was born and educated in France but came to the United States to serve as a missionary in Ohio before being assigned to Santa Fe. He reached Santa Fe in 1851 but had to travel to the Diocese of Durango, Mexico, which used to oversee the region, because the local priests did not acknowledge his authority when he first arrived.

Kathleen Holscher, an associate professor in Roman Catholic studies at the University of New Mexico, noted Lamy lived during a time of upheaval for New Mexico, which involved different groups struggling for cultural dominance in the new U.S. territory.

"On one hand you have Mexicans and also Native people who are not happy with the United States' annexation," she said. "But then among the white Americans that are showing up and trying to reform things, you have Catholics and Protestants, and they're kind of fighting with each other."

Holscher said Lamy's other legacy was found in education. He brought in many new priests from Europe to establish parishes. Many, like himself, were from France. But with the new priests came religious orders, some of which established schools that were instrumental to the educational landscape of New Mexico.

"Catholic sisters taught in New Mexico's public schools until about 1950, and Lamy brought the Catholic Sisters down here," she said. "The generations of priests and the generations of sisters that came down here because of his diocese, and then the institutions that they built, particularly schools and hospitals, formed the lives of generations and generations and generations of New Mexicans."

Lamy's work creating a more European-style educational system in New Mexico was key to making the territory more "American," she said, though it did not officially become a state until 1912.

Lamy is best known not from history but in Death Comes for the Archbishop, which gives a fictionalized account of he and fellow priest Joseph Machebeuf under the names Jean-Marie Latour and Joseph Vaillant. The book was critically acclaimed during Cather's lifetime and today is considered a classic of Western literature.

The novel draws on many real events, including Lamy's feud with Padre Martinez and his work building the cathedral, and includes other historical figures of the time, including now-controversial frontiersman Kit Carson. But it is not entirely faithful to the historical record.

"Willa Cather wrote a classic, but I do think it's important to remember it's not historical, it's fictional," Martinez said. For a nonfiction account, he recommends Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan.

Martinez said for him, the various perspectives on Lamy are a feature and not a bug.

"That's one of the things I love about New Mexico history," he said. "All these people from our past, whether it's Archbishop Lamy or Padre Martinez or Nina Otero Warren or Po'pay or De Vargas or Oñate, it seems like they were here just yesterday."

Lamy's crowded funeral took place nearly 136 years ago. But when it comes to the death of an archbishop and and the lives of others, "we're still we're still talking about them as if they just passed away a week ago," Martinez said.