Archdiocesan Religious Vocations

Christian Brothers in Santa Fe 150 Years
Thousands of St. Michael's High School alumni, students, and their families are planning their grandest and longest fiesta ever to celebrate the founding of the school 150 years ago. The first event is Founders' Day on April 30 to thank God for the academic and religious education the school has provided continuously and still provides after 150 years. It begins with a Mass of Thanksgiving in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi at 4:30 p.m. and continues with a banquet at the school at 6:30 p.m. Other events will follow later in the year.

On arriving in Santa Fe in 1851, Bishop J. B. Lamy found dozens of small parishes and missions for the thousands of Catholics, both Indian and Spanish, scattered all over the vast Territory of New Mexico. All had adobe churches or chapels, but none had schools, hospitals, or clinics. Lamy found only a handful of local priests.

He started traveling almost immediately to look for help. He recruited Sisters of Loretto from Kentucky to start a school for girls, and Sisters of Charity from Cincinnati, Ohio, to start a hospital and an orphanage. To find priests and teachers for boys, he went to his home country, France. He found priests on his first trip, but it took him until 1859 to find teachers – the Christian Brothers. Four of them left France in late summer and arrived in Santa Fe in time to open St. Michael’s College in the fall. And there have been Brothers on hand to open school every year since then.

The founding and the survival of St. Michael’s are the great events that the school’s thousands of alumni, current students, and their families are all excited about. They want to celebrate by thanking God for the religious and academic education the school has provided and is still providing, and they want to do everything within their means to help it continue for the next 150 years

The Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate hope to return to New Mexico. They served in several parishes and schools in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe but had to leave a few years ago due to declining numbers. The last to leave were Sisters Conchita Carrillo and Jeanette Parmentie. An international order founded in Switzerland, they have spread to Africa, Latin America, and the USA. Their provincialate is in Amarillo, Texas.
More at www.franciscansistersofmaryimmaculate.org