lovely. I used to live in the southern mountains, so we worshipped at the Apache Church St Joe’s in Mescalsero.
Tony de New York
Feliz navidad!!!
oso pious
I used to live in Chimayo and I taught catechism for Father Roca. As the video said the locals demanded that any priest who served them had to come directly from Spain. The Spanish order of Sons of the Holy Family continues to care for this mostly Spanish American valley from Santa Cruz to Truchas. However, there is another part of New Mexico which is mostly Mexican and Indian and Anglo and which has just as old and famous adobe churches and is much more inclusive and doesn’t require only special priests from Spain to serve them.
Jacobo
In New Mexico there are 2 major types of Hispanics or Latinos: 1) those who claim to be descendents of Spanish Colonizers and 2) those who are proud to be descendents of Mexicans and Indians or some combination thereof. I am a mixture of both types, but there are those racists who consider their pure Spanish blood to be superior and elite. The makers of the video are of this “special” breed and pride themselves on their “pure” bloodlines and the whiteness of their skin. We, ordinary Hispanics, call them “gachupines” and you will notice that their community churches have very few if any blacks,indians, or mexican-americans in their congregations. The exclusive order of Sons of the Holy Family that serves these communities comes directly from Spain. They are the Spanish equivalent of Maciel’s Legionaires of Christ. I, myself, have noticed that in their churches there are very few statues of Saint Martin de Porres, a mulatto, and hardly any statues of the dark (La Morena) Virgin of Guadalupe.
The Sons of the Holy Family are new to me. You sad that they were like Maciel’s Legion; but the Legion targets the wealthy, and clearly Chimayó is not a place to reach the wealthy.
I had also read some years ago that the area around Chimayó was one of the major centers of rural heroin addiction, and that it was often multi-generational. I was struck by all the warning signs in the parking lot, and I have been approached by beggars there – whether they were addicts or not, I do not know.
Lee Podles
oso pious
The reason the Sons of the Holy Family are to be compared to Maciel’s Legionaires is the sad fact that a number of their members have been defrocked (like Father Martinez) and accused of pedophilia. As far as wealth goes, the land grants and the fact that the whole area of Chimayo was stolen from the Tiwa Indians who had to relocate on 1st Mesa on the Hopi reservation in Arizona ( i.e. the Hano-Tewa of Walpi). Tsi’mayo was originally their sacred spring and it was a source of minerals which healing water. The whole area is now a tourist attraction (called the Lourdes of America by some) and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and the locals are investing in a five-star hotel or pilgrims’ inn and religious shopping mall for the future of the Chimayo area. The so called “Apache” Church at Mescalero, New Mexico is called St. Joseph’s and it is not just for Apaches but open to all and the services are in English, not Apache. The word “catholic” means “universal” and should be open and welcoming to all believers. After all Jesus hung out with Greeks, Romans,Syro-Phonecians etc. and not just his own relatives who spoke only Aramaic. The heroin addicts came with the Hippies who invaded this area in 1968 and set up communes where they did drugs and ran around naked while practicing “free love” and destroying the local culture.
Jacobo
My relatives from Chimayo tell me that their community has been cursed with the multi-generational heroin addicts. The plague started when the migration of Hippies from San Francisco, Ca. came during their “summer of love in “68”. Their “chool bus” drove right up to Truchas, NM and one of the Hippies’s dog bit the local “Hermano Mayor” of Truchas on his leg. Everything went downhill after that. The Hippies thought that the “common land ” that the locals used for their sheep and cattle etc. was o.k. for them to use as their “new nirvana” commune. The locals were not used to the naked Hippies running around, smoking dope, using drugs and molesting the local girls and boys. The communities of Truchas, Chimayo and Trampas etc. were very traditional and isolated at that time. The Hippies had little respect for the locals. The Penitentes or “Hermanos de La Luz” (Brothers of Light) mad a vow to remove these “outsiders”. One day a bus load of fast driving Hippies accidently drove a local family of Hispanics off the steep Truchas mountain road (elevation 8,000 ft.) and down a deep ravine. The children died before they could reach a hospital. Now in 2013, the Catholic hierarchy and local businessmen are planning a sort of “spiritual Disneyland theme park” complete with hotels and cheap religious goods stores. Bottles of “blessed” Holy Water and Holy dirt as well as local woodcarvings and charms will be for sale. The whole area will soon resemble the tourists’markets of Fatima,Lourdes,Mexico City and the “souks” of Jerusalem, complete with holy trinkets, rosaries and medals and statues made in China. The heroin addicts will peddle and beg and many religious entrepreneurs will make lots of mammon. Meanwhile, the original Tsi-mayo indians will continue to live in poverty on their isolated mesa in Arizona and the ruins of their pueblo and sacred spring will bring millions of pilgrims to this “spiritual Shangri-la” to be fleeced and pandered to by the Sons of the Holy Family from Spain.
oso pious
One day when I was teaching catechism for Father Roca SF in 1968, I was sent to the quaint little village of Cundiyo in the hills near Chimayo, NM. I asked the children to tell me their names. All 25 children said their last name was “Vigil”. Incredulous, I accused the children of trying to fool their new teacher. I later found out that Cundiyo is known as the “village of the Vigils”. Everyone allowed to live there has to be named “Vigil”. One villager in the 1800’s married a “Montoya” and had to live on the outskirts of the village. Otherwise only Vigils were allowed to live in Cundiyo. During Holy Week I wondered why I was the only one who expected to attend Mass. I found out that almost everyone was up in the hills where the local Penitente Brothers were acting out the “REAL “Passion of Christ using their own bodies as a sacrifice. It was to this “medieval” time warp that thousands of Hippies came in 1968 to experience their summer of “love”. The unwanted, brain-damaged offspring and collateral damage with toxic ,discarded heroin needles that infect this once beautiful region, remind us of what a sacrilege this area has become! It reminds me of Sedona, Arizona that once used to be a sacred site before it became commercialized and trashed. Sedona, like Chimayo used to be a sacred sanctuary, inhabited by humble Native-Americans.
oso pious
In today’s Albuquerque Journal on the front page is an article entitled “Spiritual Home” and it is about the Jemaz Pueblo’s federal lawsuit to regain their sacred land called the “Valles Caldera”. This area has numerous hot springs and is the ancestral home of these Towa pueblo indians. When the snow melts on Redondo Peak (over 11,250 ft), the profile of an eagle appears. The Paracletes call it it Holy Spirit and I have seen it many times. In their new website called “Holy Chimayo”, the Sons of the Holy Family’s new spiritual spin doctors have already put together some really attractive videos. I wonder if the Hano-tewa pueblo indians will ever get their sacred spring and lands back. The area would be great for a casino, but I sincerely doubt that will ever happen.
Looked like a great trip!! Never knew there was such a thing as the Taos Gorge.Santa Fe is such a great place to just walk around and see. Thx. for poistng.
lovely. I used to live in the southern mountains, so we worshipped at the Apache Church St Joe’s in Mescalsero.
Feliz navidad!!!
I used to live in Chimayo and I taught catechism for Father Roca. As the video said the locals demanded that any priest who served them had to come directly from Spain. The Spanish order of Sons of the Holy Family continues to care for this mostly Spanish American valley from Santa Cruz to Truchas. However, there is another part of New Mexico which is mostly Mexican and Indian and Anglo and which has just as old and famous adobe churches and is much more inclusive and doesn’t require only special priests from Spain to serve them.
In New Mexico there are 2 major types of Hispanics or Latinos: 1) those who claim to be descendents of Spanish Colonizers and 2) those who are proud to be descendents of Mexicans and Indians or some combination thereof. I am a mixture of both types, but there are those racists who consider their pure Spanish blood to be superior and elite. The makers of the video are of this “special” breed and pride themselves on their “pure” bloodlines and the whiteness of their skin. We, ordinary Hispanics, call them “gachupines” and you will notice that their community churches have very few if any blacks,indians, or mexican-americans in their congregations. The exclusive order of Sons of the Holy Family that serves these communities comes directly from Spain. They are the Spanish equivalent of Maciel’s Legionaires of Christ. I, myself, have noticed that in their churches there are very few statues of Saint Martin de Porres, a mulatto, and hardly any statues of the dark (La Morena) Virgin of Guadalupe.
Interesting information.
The Sons of the Holy Family are new to me. You sad that they were like Maciel’s Legion; but the Legion targets the wealthy, and clearly Chimayó is not a place to reach the wealthy.
I had also read some years ago that the area around Chimayó was one of the major centers of rural heroin addiction, and that it was often multi-generational. I was struck by all the warning signs in the parking lot, and I have been approached by beggars there – whether they were addicts or not, I do not know.
Lee Podles
The reason the Sons of the Holy Family are to be compared to Maciel’s Legionaires is the sad fact that a number of their members have been defrocked (like Father Martinez) and accused of pedophilia. As far as wealth goes, the land grants and the fact that the whole area of Chimayo was stolen from the Tiwa Indians who had to relocate on 1st Mesa on the Hopi reservation in Arizona ( i.e. the Hano-Tewa of Walpi). Tsi’mayo was originally their sacred spring and it was a source of minerals which healing water. The whole area is now a tourist attraction (called the Lourdes of America by some) and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and the locals are investing in a five-star hotel or pilgrims’ inn and religious shopping mall for the future of the Chimayo area. The so called “Apache” Church at Mescalero, New Mexico is called St. Joseph’s and it is not just for Apaches but open to all and the services are in English, not Apache. The word “catholic” means “universal” and should be open and welcoming to all believers. After all Jesus hung out with Greeks, Romans,Syro-Phonecians etc. and not just his own relatives who spoke only Aramaic. The heroin addicts came with the Hippies who invaded this area in 1968 and set up communes where they did drugs and ran around naked while practicing “free love” and destroying the local culture.
My relatives from Chimayo tell me that their community has been cursed with the multi-generational heroin addicts. The plague started when the migration of Hippies from San Francisco, Ca. came during their “summer of love in “68”. Their “chool bus” drove right up to Truchas, NM and one of the Hippies’s dog bit the local “Hermano Mayor” of Truchas on his leg. Everything went downhill after that. The Hippies thought that the “common land ” that the locals used for their sheep and cattle etc. was o.k. for them to use as their “new nirvana” commune. The locals were not used to the naked Hippies running around, smoking dope, using drugs and molesting the local girls and boys. The communities of Truchas, Chimayo and Trampas etc. were very traditional and isolated at that time. The Hippies had little respect for the locals. The Penitentes or “Hermanos de La Luz” (Brothers of Light) mad a vow to remove these “outsiders”. One day a bus load of fast driving Hippies accidently drove a local family of Hispanics off the steep Truchas mountain road (elevation 8,000 ft.) and down a deep ravine. The children died before they could reach a hospital. Now in 2013, the Catholic hierarchy and local businessmen are planning a sort of “spiritual Disneyland theme park” complete with hotels and cheap religious goods stores. Bottles of “blessed” Holy Water and Holy dirt as well as local woodcarvings and charms will be for sale. The whole area will soon resemble the tourists’markets of Fatima,Lourdes,Mexico City and the “souks” of Jerusalem, complete with holy trinkets, rosaries and medals and statues made in China. The heroin addicts will peddle and beg and many religious entrepreneurs will make lots of mammon. Meanwhile, the original Tsi-mayo indians will continue to live in poverty on their isolated mesa in Arizona and the ruins of their pueblo and sacred spring will bring millions of pilgrims to this “spiritual Shangri-la” to be fleeced and pandered to by the Sons of the Holy Family from Spain.
One day when I was teaching catechism for Father Roca SF in 1968, I was sent to the quaint little village of Cundiyo in the hills near Chimayo, NM. I asked the children to tell me their names. All 25 children said their last name was “Vigil”. Incredulous, I accused the children of trying to fool their new teacher. I later found out that Cundiyo is known as the “village of the Vigils”. Everyone allowed to live there has to be named “Vigil”. One villager in the 1800’s married a “Montoya” and had to live on the outskirts of the village. Otherwise only Vigils were allowed to live in Cundiyo. During Holy Week I wondered why I was the only one who expected to attend Mass. I found out that almost everyone was up in the hills where the local Penitente Brothers were acting out the “REAL “Passion of Christ using their own bodies as a sacrifice. It was to this “medieval” time warp that thousands of Hippies came in 1968 to experience their summer of “love”. The unwanted, brain-damaged offspring and collateral damage with toxic ,discarded heroin needles that infect this once beautiful region, remind us of what a sacrilege this area has become! It reminds me of Sedona, Arizona that once used to be a sacred site before it became commercialized and trashed. Sedona, like Chimayo used to be a sacred sanctuary, inhabited by humble Native-Americans.
In today’s Albuquerque Journal on the front page is an article entitled “Spiritual Home” and it is about the Jemaz Pueblo’s federal lawsuit to regain their sacred land called the “Valles Caldera”. This area has numerous hot springs and is the ancestral home of these Towa pueblo indians. When the snow melts on Redondo Peak (over 11,250 ft), the profile of an eagle appears. The Paracletes call it it Holy Spirit and I have seen it many times. In their new website called “Holy Chimayo”, the Sons of the Holy Family’s new spiritual spin doctors have already put together some really attractive videos. I wonder if the Hano-tewa pueblo indians will ever get their sacred spring and lands back. The area would be great for a casino, but I sincerely doubt that will ever happen.
Looked like a great trip!! Never knew there was such a thing as the Taos Gorge.Santa Fe is such a great place to just walk around and see. Thx. for poistng.