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brief of July 21, 1877, 61 to limit its jurisdiction to the area lying south and east of the Arroyo de los Hermanos and San Roque Creek, and south of the Nueces River to include Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, and Webb Counties and part of Dimmit County along the Rio Grande; En- cinal, Duval, and Nueces Counties to the north of those preceding; that part of La Salle and McMullen Counties, together with Live Oak County, south of the Neueces River; and San Patricio, Bee, Refugio, Goliad, and Aransas Counties, north of the Nueces River. Having been consecrated bishop by Archbishop Napoleon J. Perche of New Orleans on December 8, 1874, the Feast of the Immaculate Concep- tion, in the Cathedral of Mobile, Bishop Dominic Manucy left for Texas shortly afterwards. As early as September, however, news of his nom- ination as Vicar Apostolic had reached Brownsville. His admiration for the Jesuits, in whose Spring Hill College he had been educated, aroused an unwarranted apprehension on the part of the Oblates. For over a quarter of a century these humble servants of the Lord had been faith- fully laboring in the Lower Rio Grande Valley out of Brownsville as a base. Father Florent Corneille Vandenberghe, the new superior vicar of the Oblates, arrived in the spring of 1874 ( 1875?) with private instruc- tions to investigate conditions and to withdraw the Oblates from the Texas mission if the situation warranted it. Although this fact was not known, the suspicion aroused by rumors of the new bishop's predilection for the Jesuits had sown consternation among the devoted missionaries of the Rio Grande, who had become deeply attached to their grateful and trusting flocks. The Vicar Apostolic had been awaited with various degrees of antici- pation. Just when he arrived is not known, but the formal installation took place on Sunday, February 14, 1875, in the beautiful church of the Immaculate Conception in Brownsville, recently built by the Oblates. Everybody appears to have joined in welcoming Bishop Manucy, Catholic and Protestant, Mexican and Anglo-American alike. The enthronement was a splendid event, for no effort was spared to make the occasion memorable. The Vicar Apostolic was escorted in procession between cheer- ing crowds from St. Joseph's College to the Church of the Immaculate Conception .. : 61 Copy of the brief in the Diocesan Archives at Corpus Christi, Texas. 62 P. F. Parisot, Reminiscences of a Texas Missionary, 119; Mary Immaculate, 1931, 40-41; Journal of Father Vandenberghe, Arc/iives of the Oblates, San Antonio. It is said that the people of Brownsville spent S1,470.oo on the celebration. See Sister Mary Xavier Holworthy, History of t/1e Diocese of Cor'/)111 Chr;sti. (Un- printed,)
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