Tlze Field and Its Workers
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city of Quetetaro. The General of the Order, much pleased with the royal approval, requested the Province of Michoacan to turn over to Fray Antonio Linaz and his companions the Convent of La Santa Cruz de Queretaro, who were to establish there the new seminary of apostolic missionaries, whose main purpose was to be the propagation of the faith among the faithful and the unconverted. His Holiness Pope Innocent XI gave his approval and sanction in his Brief Sacrosanctimi A,postolatus Officium, on May 8, 1682, and the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide of Rome then appointed-Fray Antonio Linaz de Jesus Maria Prefect of all the missions in the Indies. 38 With incredible diligence the zealous Fray Antonio recruited in eight months missionaries for the new college by visiting almost all the provinces of Spain. By March 4, 1683, when the fleet in which they were to embark was ready to sail, he had succeeded in gathering twenty- one missionaries and five lay brothers. But while waiting to depart, two priests and a brother died in Cadiz, thus only nineteen priests and four brothers, under· the leadership of Fray Antonio, finally set sail on the venturesome undertaking. It is worth while noting that out of the original nineteen missionary priests, who founded the College of Propaganda Fide of La Santa Cruz de Queretaro, nine were destined to labor in Texas. These were Fathers Fray Francisco Esteves, preacher and confessor of the Province of Canarias; Fray Miguel de Fontcuberta, preacher and confessor of the Province of Mallorca; Fray Antonio Casanas de Jesus Maria, confessor of the Province of Catalonia; Fray Antonio Margil d Jesus, preacher and confessor of the Province of Valencia; Fray Francisc, Hidalgo, preacher of the Province of Los Angeles; Fray Joseph Diez. preacher and confessor of the Province of Castilla; Fray Antonio Perea, preacher and confessor of the Province of Mallorca; Fray Damian Massanet, preacher and confessor of the Province of Mallorca; and Fray Antonio Bordoy, likewise of Mallorca. After a stormy and dangerous voyage in which they narrowly escaped capture first by pirates and then by · English corsairs, the devoted founders of the first college of Propaga11da Fide in America landed in Veracruz on May 30, 1683. Without waiting to rest, they set out on foot for Queretaro, with no other food or baggage than a walking stick, a crucifix, a rosary, and a breviary. Preaching missions in each town they passed, the caravan of fervent missionaries in their drab brown robes finally arrived in Queretaro on August 13, 1683, where they
HJ bid., 40-42 i 44.
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