Catholic icons create church, state collision in Santa Rosa

Sep. 4—SANTA ROSA

Two saintly women are stirring trouble, through no fault of their own, in this small Eastern New Mexico town of 3,000 people in Guadalupe County.

One is Santa Rosa, the patroness of the Americas, whom the town is named after. The other is Our Lady of Guadalupe, the county's namesake.

They are powerful symbols of Hispanic Catholic culture and history in the region, and some residents of the town are pushing for acknowledgment of their significance with visual displays on government property — a painting of Santa Rosa and a 20-foot-tall monument to Our Lady. But the proposed initiatives have drawn opposition, even from Catholics who say religious icons don't belong in public spaces.

Santa Rosa resident Herman Baca donated the painting, by a Peruvian artist, to City Hall — where it hung for about 24 hours in the spring before calls to take it down prompted its removal.

He also hopes to donate a massive tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Baca would like to see the monument, which could stretch 30 feet wide, erected on a city-owned lawn surrounding the Guadalupe County courthouse about a block from City Hall. It could serve as a tourist attraction, he said, drawing motorists off nearby Interstate 40 and into the downtown area, where they could eat, stop at local businesses and perhaps spend the night — boosting a local economy that could use a boost.

"This thing is meant for downtown," Baca said in a recent interview in Santa Rosa. He envisions the monument illuminated at night and said it would be a "grand, beautiful display."

Our Lady of Guadalupe and Santa Rosa are important figures in the founding of the once-thriving railroad town and Route 66 stopping point, he said. "This is our history."

While some Santa Rosa residents support Baca's monument proposal as a possible boost to tourism and others are in favor of displaying the icons somewhere in town, some remain adamant the images shouldn't be placed on government ground or the wall of a public building.

According to a report in a local newspaper, the Guadalupe County Communicator, about 30 people showed up for a public hearing before the City Council on the proposed monument in early August and about a dozen spoke against it.

The initiative is still in the early planning stages. Baca said it will take months to create a formal plan and get the monument built if the city approves it.

Some residents still decry the temporary display of the Santa Rosa painting, hung by Mayor Nelson Kotiar in the spring without City Council approval. Kotiar also erased the name of a long-deceased City Hall employee named Rita Sanchez that was etched into the wall in honor of her service.

Kotiar said he quickly took the painting down after receiving complaints and plans to restore Sanchez's name to the wall at his own expense. He also plans to ask the City Council for approval to hang the painting during a Sept. 13 meeting.

"It's about me," Kotiar said in an interview at City Hall. A native of India who has lived in the U.S. for decades. Kotiar, who is Catholic, said because he is an outsider — twice elected mayor — everything he does is under scrutiny and open to criticism.

He noted a painting of Santa Rosa hangs in the county courthouse, and no one raises a fuss about it. Nor has anyone complained about a small bust of St. Joseph he displays in his office, he said.

The unsettled Establishment Clause

The Santa Rosa dispute comes in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing a North Carolina high school football coach to pray on the field, a ruling some people believe will open the door to prayer in public schools and other actions that blur the separation of church and state under the First Amendment.

Attorney Andy Schultz, who successfully led a winning court case to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Bloomfield City Hall lawn several years ago, said it's not easy to decipher a clause in the amendment on religious freedom, known as the Establishment Clause.

"The current status of the Establishment Clause jurisprudence is a mess," he said.

When Schultz teaches the Establishment Clause in law classes, he said, he creates a series of boxes to show the many ways it has been interpreted by the courts.

"The law in regard to prayer before legislative meetings [which occurs in New Mexico] is not the same as the law regarding prayer before school events, which is not the same as the law with public religious displays, which is not the same as funding religious education," he said. "Within each little box, the law can be fairly well organized and consistent, but between boxes, it's night and day."

He pointed out two cases challenging public displays of the Ten Commandments on government property — one that failed to sway the Supreme Court and one that did.

Bloomfield lost its argument about placing a privately funded monument featuring the commandments after the Supreme Court ruled in 2017 its primary goal was to endorse religion.

In 2005, however, the Supreme Court ruled Texas could keep a 1961 monument of the Ten Commandments on the statehouse grounds, saying such an artifact does not necessarily promote religion.

Several factors swayed the court in the Texas monument's favor, Schultz said. It was donated decades ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles as a guide to moral codes, and no one publicly complained about it for years. In addition, he said, is it is placed amid a number of monuments honoring "defenders of the Alamo to firemen to Texas Rangers," downplaying its religious significance in the larger context of Texas history.

Schultz noted, as did Baca, that the Santa Fe City Hall features a prominent statute of St. Francis on the lawn.

'It just doesn't belong there'

State Historian Rob Martinez said the issue in Santa Rosa is complicated in a state with historical connections to Catholicism and saints.

"It's an interesting question, right?" he said. "We have so many Spanish and Mexican names [of towns and counties] that are shod through Roman Catholicism." While some people may protest placing religious icons on public property, he said, "Locals say, 'What's the big deal? We've been doing Catholic imagery for centuries.' "

That's the way Santa Rosa resident Daniel Flores sees it. The retired educator and historian noted religious statues and artworks are on public property around the state — including a Lady of Sorrows statue in Plaza Park in Las Vegas, N.M.

People like to cite the church-state separation argument "when it's convenient for them," he added.

Flores sees the proposed monument to Our Lady of Guadalupe as "simply honoring our ancestors" who saw saints as inspirational figures.

"I don't think Herman Baca wants people to go out there [to the monument] and kneel down and pray," he said. "They can do whatever they want."

Others, like Luisa Chappell, who runs a gift shop down the street from City Hall, disagree.

Speaking about the possible placement of the monument on city property, she said "it just doesn't belong there."

She's also not in favor of the Santa Rosa painting hanging in City Hall. "I am a devout Catholic and pray to Mary every single day, but that's not where the painting belongs," she said.

Laura Sena, who runs a downtown store called The Kids Closet — full of clothes, toys and other accessories for children — said she is not opposed to the idea of a monument to Our Lady of Guadalupe placed downtown. But not on city property.

She doesn't believe the monument will be a tourist draw. "I don't think them putting it up is going to make people come here," she said.

She said the monument could shape visitors' perceptions that everyone in Santa Rosa is Catholic — when in fact the town is inclusive and has people of other faiths.

Michael Gallegos, manager of the Fashion Fantasy store across from the city property where Baca wants to erect monument, said it might draw tourists downtown.

But, he added, both the proposed monument and the painting of Santa Rosa are "purely religious icons and not appropriate for government property."

"They are beautiful pieces of art, and I support them being built on private property," he said.

The two back-to-back proposals have probably drawn more locals to City Council meetings in the past few months than in the past few years, Kotiar said. He said he is open to Baca's donation of the monument for the city to display.

"I never thought there was going to be a problem," he said.

Baca, who works as a broadband consultant and said he has no financial interest in either artwork being displayed, said he is not surprised about the pushback.

"We don't want it to be easy," he said. "We want to make sure we are transparent. We're telling everybody what we're doing."

Looking at a preliminary sketch of what the monument could look like, he said Our Lady of Guadalupe is "the history of the county."