Wake for a Fat Vicar: Father Juan Felipe Ortiz, Archbishop Lamy, and the New Mexican Catholic Church in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (review)

Fray Angélico Chávez is widely known for his writing on New Mexico culture and history. In the 1980's he published two volumes of a trilogy on Hispanic leaders of the New Mexico Church in the nineteenth century. The first, But Time and Chance (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 1981), offered a much-needed corrective to dark portrayals of Padre Antonio José Martínez of Taos. The second, Tres Macho—He Said (Santa Fe: William Gannon, 1985), sought to rehabilitate the reputation of Padre José Manuel Gallegos of Albuquerque. Later Chávez turned his attention to Father Juan Felipe Ortiz of Santa Fe. Before his death, in 1996, Chávez asked his nephew, Thomas E. Chávez, a historian, to complete the book. Wake for a Fat Vicar is the result of their combined efforts.

Chávez and Chávez divide the biography into two parts. The first provides information to help the reader understand the context in which Vicar Ortiz functioned, including diocesan contacts with Durango, Mexico, and the challenges and burdens he faced. It reports on his service in the National Congress in Mexico City, and the intricate web of family ties and friendships between key figures in Santa Fe history of the period. It also challenges reporting by figures such as Josiah Gregg and Richard Smith Elliott as culturally biased. Building on their own previous scholarship, Chávez and Chávez reconsider Ortiz's alleged role in the 1847 Taos revolt and the vicar's relationship to the new American government.

The second part details the shock waves that followed the transfer of the New Mexico Catholic Church to the American bishops, and the arrival of Jean Baptiste Lamy, who later became first archbishop of Santa Fe. This is ground that Fray Angélico Chávez has covered before in his previous biographies. However, the focus this time is on the impact of the "new dispensation" on Santa Fe in particular and changes in Vicar Ortiz's status following the arrival of Lamy and his lifelong friend Joseph P. Machebeuf. Those interested in the details regarding Ortiz's displacement from his role as cura propria, or irremovable pastor, the division of Ortiz's parish by Lamy, and contentious encounters over various forms of church property will find these areas examined in considerable detail. Further information is also provided on the complex relationships between Ortiz, Gallegos, and Martínez, and their relationships to Lamy and Machebeuf.

The solid nature of the work and the quality of the historical investigation is slightly marred by the failure to address multicultural dimensions, the somewhat antagonistic tone, and the incorrect closing assertion that among previous biographers of Lamy and Machebeuf "none... were New Mexicans." Additionally, the authors would have been better served by LPD Press with closer attention to copy-editing, if the spelling of authors' names in citations were consistent, and a more detailed index were provided. This book is unlikely to change any minds or create any bridges between cultures. Yet for interested readers, it is a solid culmination to Fray Angélico Chávez's trilogy and a good foundation for Thomas E. Chávez's work.