Our Catltolic Heritage in Texas
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support and furtherance of charitable, educational, and religious under- takings, with particular emphasis on the promotion of historical studies, the discovery, collection and preservation of material relating to the his- tory of the Roman Catholic Church in the State of Texas, and sponsoring activities and unincorporated societies in connection with its main objec- tives." It was the mind of the incorporators to encourage the establishment of regional or diocesan historical societies whose members would include both the laity and the clergy. It was also hoped that through the formation of this historical society some means might be found to establish a his- torical review in order to give historians of Texas a further opportunity to bring their written contributions before the reading public. When the Texas Knights of Columbus Historical Commission met in special session at Incarnate Word College, San Antonio, May 21, 1947, the members gave much consideration to the archives which were deposited with the Holy Cross Fathers at St. Edward's University, Austin. By agreements entered into by the State Council of Texas and St. Edward's University, dated November 23, 1926; and amended in May 1929, the archives accumulated by the Knights of Columbus were to become the property of St. Edward's University. The University in turn agreed to keep the archives in Texas, to provide for their safekeeping, and to permit bona fide students and historians the free use of all historical material to be found in such archives. The Knights of Columbus of Texas, in donating the archives gathered at a cost of about $75,000.00, wished to show their appreciation of the Holy Cross Fathers who, from the very inception of the ambitious program to produce a history of the Church in Texas, gave every help they could, and assigned some of their best priests to aid in this far-reaching and important undertaking. It is for this reason that Fathers Foik and Gibbons were able to spend so many years, without material compensation, in managing the archives and editing the volumes of 011,r Catholic Heritage. The increased enrollment at St. Edward's, and great need of more facilities when every space was already crowded; the allocation of St. Edward's University to the Brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross upon the formation of their own Provincialate, and most specially because of the important collection of Texana accumulated by His Excellency Bishop FitzSimon at Amarillo, led to the resolve of the Historical Com- mission to ask the Brothers of Holy Cross to relinquish their rights to the archives, as successors of the Fathers of Holy Cross, in order to merge the archives with the Texana collection of the Bishop of Amarillo.
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