Lamy of Santa Fe

XI. Archbishop • 1875–1880

XI ARCHBISHOP 1875 -1880 l. The Archbishop KENRICK AND HIS ASSEMBLED BISHOPS, meeting in St Louis, went counter to Lamy's advice, and sent their recommendations to the Vatican: Santa Fe should become a metropolitan see, with Lamy as its first archbishop, and the apostolic vicars Machebeuf of Colorado and Salpointe of Arizona as his suffragans. On 12 February 1875, Pius IX, in consistory, decreed the establishment as proposed, named Lamy for the pallium, and bestowed a red hat upon an American for the first time. This was Archbishop John McCloskey of New York. Lamy was absent on a ten-day pastoral visit when a letter came from Purcell to congratulate him on the promotion; but Lamy had not yet received any official notification. By April the news was general, and Machebeuf pointed out to his sister that the new province of Santa Fe had three bishops, all of them Auvergnats. Affairs took Salpointe to New York during the spring, and there he was given a papal mission to carry out; for Monsignor Caesar Roncetti, who had arrived in New York to present the cardinal's biretta to McCloskey, brought also the pallium for Lamy, but after his voyage from Rome did not feel equal to the further journey to Santa Fe to bestow upon Lamy the badge of his new office. Instead, discovering that a bishop suffragan to Santa Fe was in town, Roncetti asked Rome ~o approve his giving the pallium to Salpointe for delivery to Lamy. The permission was granted, and Salpointe returned to New Mexico carrying the visible symbol of the rank of archbishop, with which Lamy would be solemnly vested. The pallium signified that its wearer participated "in a particular way" in the very institution of the Pope's supreme pastoral office. It was worn only by patriarchs, primates, and archbishops. Unchanged since the sixth century, its form consisted of a collar made of a white woolen band "three fingers wide" which could be placed over the 377 ARCHBISHOP· 1875-1880 head upon the shoulders of the wearer. Lappets of the same width as the band hung from it front and back. It was woven and made according to ancient ritual and symbol. The wool was taken from two white lambs representing Christ, the Lamb of God, and the Good Shepherd. The lambs were blessed on the feast of St Agnes, 21 January, in the saint's basilica on the Via Nomentana at Rome, and the bands were woven from their wool by the Benedictine nuns of St Cecilia in Trastevere , who completed the fabric by embroidering six black crosses of silk on collar and lappets. The finished pallium was blessed by the Pope in St Peter's on 28 June, the eve of the feast of SS Peter and Paul, and was then placed in a silver urn, and the urn deposited in a cabinet under the Altar of the Confession over the tomb of St Peter, there to remain until taken away for presentation. An investiture of the pallium always followed celebration of the Mass and taking of an oath of allegiance to the Pope by the new recipient. The Latin word meant both cloak and pall. The pallium was buried with its holder. All arrangements went forward for Lamy's reception of it on 16 June 1875. • • 11. Jubilation Ar DAYBREAK nine puffs of cannon smoke followed by the thump of shots broke over Santa Fe from Fort Marcy on its height. The salute was followed by strains of music sounding from the bishop's garden, where the band of St Michael's College serenaded him in front of his house. Newly placed evergreen trees traced the lines of the streets. Since early morning, the living elements of a procession were seen gathering in the side streets where sodality banners stirred and shone in the fine air-it was a beautiful spring day. At nine o'clock there was movement around the cathedral. Clergy in vestments were gathering there, twenty priests who had been able to come from their distant missions, and the two bishops from Denver and Tucson, and the new archbishop himself. The old cathedral, within the yet incomplete shell of the new, was too small to receive the great crowd which was expected; and the investiture would take place in the open courtyard at the rear of St Michael's College next to the ancient chapel of...