Ottr Catleolic H eri t,ige in Texas
men as to the procedure that should be taken. Immediately after his arrival in Victoria, Odin discussed the matter with ex-Senator Linn, who initiated proceedings at once against the City Council and suc- ceeded in recovering the Church property expropriated by the local authorities. But this action was on a local level and concerned but one specific piece of property. After his visit to the missions in San Antonio, the Vice-Prefect had informed Procurator General Etienne that he in- tended going to Austin in order to present the matter of the rights of the reorganized Church to all property formerly held by it. He had no sooner arrived in Austin than, with the powerful influence of the French Charge, Alphonse Dubois de Saligny, he began to approach various legislators for the purpose of having Congress pass a measure which would revalidate the Church's title to its former holdings. Odin prepared a carefully worded petition which his friend, Con- gressman William Porter, presented to the House on December 21. Addressed to the "Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas in Congress Assembled," the petition went on: His Holiness Gregory the 16th, head of the Roman Catholic Church, appreciating the importance of the young and flourishing Republic of Texas, and anxious to establish in your country that organization of the holy ministry, which your rank as an independent Nation required, has, by letters of October 24th, 1839, sent · among you one who draws his spiritual jurisdiction immediately from the Holy See. In conformity to the wishes of the Sovereign Pontiff, some few clergymen, soon to be followed by others, have already settled among you, and are talcing measures to form literary institutions for the diffusion of sciences and the promotion of morality. Throughout the Republic there exist various churches built under the Spanish or Mexican government as the property and for the benefit of the Roman Catholics. Your petitioner, a stranger to tht Laws of the country, has postponed opening them for divine worship until by an act of your honorable body, they would have been recog- nized as the property of the Catholic part of the community. Some of these churches were parish churches, such as those of Victoria, Goliad, San Antonio, and Nacogdoches; those of the Alamo, Con- ception, San Jose, San Juan, Espada and Refugio, though at first erected for the use of the Indians, were reserved by the Mexican Government for the benefit of the Catholics at the time that the land of the missions was sold. Already many of those temples are almost ruined, and the others, unless repaired, will soon fall into decay. Sev- eral Catholic families live in the vicinity of those edifices, and many more propose, before long, moving there. Confiding on the liberality and justice of your honorable Body,
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