Grand Canyon

The Spanish arrived here in 1540, led by Hopi Indian guides. The soldiers couldn't reach the floor of the canyon at the time -- I suspect the Hopi weren't inclined to lead them to what was a sacred spot for them -- so they gave up and went home. The next Spanish didn't come through for another 200 years.


Any more trips to the canyon floor are considered more or less routine. What will never be routine is the canyon view. I was there for a few days in May of 2000; aside from the immense beauty, what struck me was how different the canyon looked depending on what time of day you were there. In the morning the walls seemed to be streaked in shades of brown and brilliant red, while towards evening the red turned deeper, until it gave way to a royal purple with the day's gloaming. It was a joy to simply sit there on the canyon rim and watch what seemed like a slow-motion firework display emerge over a period of hours.

Letter #1: School Vouchers

A local newspaper bills itself as a conservative alternative to the AJC. At times it succeeds.

In February of 2007 the paper published an op-ed piece about school vouchers. I wrote a response, which was published the next week.

Here are links to the originals:
* Original Article: p. 35 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703
* My Response: p. 37 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703_1

Below is my letter.

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Editor: School Vouchers

Parents require viable means of caring for their children, and it is one of the primary duties of government to assist them in this endeavor.

In a world of complex social interactions, mobile widespread populations, rapidly-changing moral developments, and international governance, trade, and ecological considerations, it is crucial to have solid knowledge, skills, and criteria for evaluating and understanding different cultural dispositions so as to arrive at sound intellectual and moral conclusions.

The best way, I think, of educating anyone in how to reach this goal is to form in them a concrete understanding that acknowledges the unchanging aspects and needs of human nature and the role of family, country, faith, and other inherently binding factors.

For this reason I read with abhorrence the Davis and LoBracco op-ed supporting current notions of diversity in the schools and advocating secular schooling; also troubling was the favorable mention of Bob Chase and the NEA, who have a reputation for putting the needs of teachers ahead of the needs of children.

A school environment is not sufficiently diverse when it obliterates the integrity of diverse groups and replaces them with a static, egalitarian, collectivist, homogenized alternative that promiscuously draws on incongruous sources. A classroom is less intellectually diverse, not more, when disparate elements are presented side by side and trusting students are told to accept on blind faith the dogma that one option is just as good as the other, and that what separates them are just accidental subjective points of view.

At times different views simply cannot be reconciled: one position or another must be chosen, and there cannot be even tolerance of its opposite. Will a monogamist sell his daughter to a polygamist? When the state-run school is obligatory and lack of financial resources precludes the possibility of an alternative educational environment, the monogamist will be forced to consider it – an act of violence against that person’s nature, and a degradation of what that individual holds dear.

Teach a variety of politics, literature, art, music, histories, culture, religions, philosophies, and economics. More importantly, teach how to judge between them using criteria that are not clichéd expedients for a dehumanized state.

Counting to 10

My niece was an early speaker: by 18 months my sister had taught her to count to 10 in English, French, and Spanish.

I remembered enough of my high-school and college Russian to coach my niece in that tongue too, so I gave it a shot. At first she took to it very well -- after only two passes she could repeat one through five back to me. Then as she turned away to some other diversion she announced, "Uncle Sean, I want to stop now -- you're boring me."

There ended the lesson.

Mom's Recipe

There’s a recipe for Beef Stroganoff in the family that makes my mouth water when I simply think about it.

Beef Stroganoff Recipe
* 1 lb. lean boneless sirloin cut into strips
* ¼ lb. butter (½ olive oil, if desired)
* ½ lb. fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
* ½ cup minced red onions
* 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
* ½ cup beef consommé
* ½ cup Marsala wine
* ½ teaspoon dry mustard
* 1 tbspn. tomato paste
* ½ cup sour cream 
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onion and garlic in butter. Add mushrooms. Cook slowly five minutes. Remove to bowl.
Brown meat in same skillet.

* Add seasonings, onions, and mushrooms, tomato paste, consommé, and red Marsala wine. Simmer gently for 1 hour or until meat is tender. Just before serving, stir in sour cream. Do not boil. Serve on rice or noodles. Serves 4 (2 with seconds).

* After you have browned the steak in the fat, remove the steak and mix 2 tablespoons of flour with the fat left in the pan. Cook it for a little bit to get rid of the floury taste and mix it to get rid of any lumps that form (or use a blender to remove lumps).

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Last month I cooked this dish myself for the first time. Some of the ingredients – e.g. beef consommé, Marsala wine, tomato paste -- I never cook with, so I was obliged to engage in an extra bit of foraging at the grocery store to locate them. The most elusive dubloon turned out to be the beef consommé: I didn’t see it among the broths and bullions, and the grocery store employee had never heard of it. I ended up phoning ma mère, the family Kitchen Expert, who directed me to the soup aisle. I ended the call, and after a few moments more of looking I located the remaining ingredient.

A few days later I received a UPS box with my brother’s name on it in the return address; inside the box were two cans of beef consommé. “Ah, what a joker!” I laughed. I used one of the cans when I cooked up a batch of Beef Stroganoff, then boxed the empty can and returned it to my back-slapping brother.

This perplexed him to no end. “Why would Sean send me an empty can of consommé?” The can happened to have arrived just before his birthday, so he pondered whether I perhaps meant something profound and metaphysical in the keepsake I sent him.

I was perplexed in turn by his perplexity. Surely my meaning wasn’t so obscure as all that: that I’d received and enjoyed his largesse, and had sent him the decommissioned vessel in acknowledgement and to extend the gag a bit further.

The answer to the riddle came on my next visit south, where it was revealed that my mother had sent the two cans. The mix-up came at the UPS store, where the clerk applied to the package the family name on record in the UPS database. That name, it turned out, was not my mother’s -- it was my brother’s.

The conundrum cracked, my brother pledged to keep the can on hand as a token of the strangest birthday gift he’d ever received. Meanwhile I was left to wonder what would happen if I asked mom for her apple pie recipe.

The Can Itself

The Georgia Martyrs

In September of 1597 five Spanish Franciscan missionaries were slain by American Indians on the islands off what would later become the Georgia coast. These gentle sons of St. Francis suffered and died for love of the sacrament of matrimony, becoming heroes of the Catholic faith. Like St. John the Baptist who was martyred for protesting King Herod taking for himself the wife of his brother, the five Georgia Martyrs are an eloquent rebuke – then as now – to an age that believes men can make use of marriage with no regard for public morality or for the spiritual character of the institution.

Era of the Spanish Missions in the American Southeast 
The Spanish missions on the southeast American continent – what Juan Ponce de León discovered in the Easter season of 1513 and named La Florida – initially extended from the Florida Keys along the Gulf of Mexico west to Texas and then north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.

By the end of the 16th century Spanish influence over most of this area had diminished, but colonies were well-entrenched in northern Florida and coastal Georgia: from a base on the east coast in St. Augustine, missions stretched west across the peninsula to Tallahassee and north along the coast to the Island of St. Catherine (Santa Catalina).

The pinnacle of the Spanish missionary age arrived in 1667 when 70 missions served by 40 priests and brothers were active from Florida as far north to St. Catherine’s Island. It had a longer life-span and involved an even greater numbers of religious and converts than its more famous counterpart in the American west a century and a half later under the “Apostle of California,” Fr. Junípero Serra. This era ended in 1742 when the English Lord (later General) James Oglethorpe defeated Spanish troops at the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simon’s Island.

Life in the Missions
The Spanish missions of coastal Georgia were trying: salt marshes and tidal freshwater wetlands abounded; stone was scarce, and the soil was poor, wet, and acidic, making crops difficult to grow; in the submerged saw-grass terrain mosquitoes buzzed and bit constantly.

Spanish families were reluctant to settle there, preferring the more hospitable lands of Cuba and Mexico to the south. Soldiers considered assignments in the area hardship duty.

One tribe of aborigines controlled the terrain along the 100-mile strip of land and islands that would become the Georgia coast. This group of semi-nomadic worshipers of sun and sky practiced polygamy, wore little clothing, and were lazy, erratic, and warlike. These natives were disinclined to accept Christianity, showing open contempt and even violence: priests who greeted them with charity were not-infrequently slaughtered.

The Indians supplemented their diet of wildlife by planting crops of maize, beans, and tobacco. They built villages of wattle, daub, and tabby for maintaining their farms, but they did not live permanently in them. Each village was ruled by a chief, or mico; over all the micos was a mico mayer, or head chief. In their native tongue they called themselves the Guale (pronounced by the Spanish “Walley”), which was the title of their chief and the name of their main village. The Spanish applied the term to their land as well.

The beginning of the missions among the Guale is credited to the Jesuits, who began their efforts in 1569; one of the missionaries, Domingo Augustin, also wrote a grammar of the Guale language. The unpredictability of the natives and the migratory life of neighboring tribes proved too much for the few Jesuits to serve, however, and a year after a 1571 Indian uprising and massacre the Jesuits withdrew from that mission field.

In 1573 missions were resumed by the Franciscans, who had greater success. The main Franciscan mission was based in the Guale capital on St. Catherine's Island. Deep into the wilderness, far from the safety of military protection, these preachers of the Gospel built missions, taught and catechized, administered the sacraments, and offered the sacrifice of the Mass.

Catechizing the Guale was a slow process, but in time the missionaries taught the Indians the catechism in their native tongue, introduced them to European methods of agriculture, and reminded them of the necessity of wearing clothes, working diligently, and living peacefully. Though the Franciscans adapted themselves where they could to many Indian customs, they held firm that a Catholic man could not divorce, and that he could have only one wife. The missionaries would not baptize a Guale adult who refused to promise to live in a permanent marriage with only one spouse. Through entreaties, patience, and gifts the friars converted a number of the Guale, who were baptized, confirmed, and buried as Catholics.

Five Martyrs
In 1595, during the reign of Spain’s King Philip II, the Guale Christians numbered 1,500 souls when they received a new community of friars.

The recent arrivals were escorted by the local governor to the several missions. At each village the governor reverently knelt to kiss the hands of the missionaries in the presence of the assembled Indians, an act that made a great impression on the inhabitants. A new mission was soon established at the important Guale village of Tolomato, just north of present day Brunswick. The spot was named Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de Tolomato -- Our Lady of Guadalupe of Tolomato.

The Franciscans’ work continued with no little success, and two years later 22 Guale tribal chiefs traveled south to St. Augustine to pledge their allegiance to the governor. This jewel in the crown of the Franciscan missionary efforts meant that friars could be sent safely almost anywhere among the Indians from the southern tip of Florida north to the border of English-held lands.

Then came a sudden Indian revolt with bloodshed. The ensuing problems had far-reaching consequences which precipitated a change in Spanish rule and marked the beginning of the end of Spanish sovereignty in that region of the New World.

The instigator was Juanillo, a belligerent son of the Tolomato mico. Juanillo married a second wife, and to the great scandal of the Indian Christians he refused the admonitions of the Franciscan in charge of the Tolomato mission, Fr. Pedro de Corpa, a wise and holy Castilian preacher and confessor. A Catholic can have only one wife, the friar said: if a man would remain a Christian he must give up the life of the polygamist as he had promised at his baptism.

Juanillo scoffed at and ridiculed Fr. Corpa. The young Indian’s status as a village leader meant that his recalcitrance endangered the spiritual well-being of the entire mission. Taking counsel with Fr. Blas de Rodríguez, the Spanish superior of all the Guale missions, Fr. Corpa deprived Juanillo of his right to succeed his father as the Guale mico mayer. The right of succession would instead descend upon a relative.

Martyrdom of Fray Pedro de Corpa
The furious Juanillo gathered about him a group of conspirators. Several days later, on the morning of September 14 – the feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – while Fr. Corpa prepared for morning mass, Juanillo and his men, adorned in war-paint, rushed the priest and killed him with their macana, or stone hatchets. They severed Fr. Corpa’s head and impaled it on a stick by the river amid pagan celebrations. The body was exposed to the elements for several days before being buried in an unmarked grave in the woods.
 
Martyrdom of Fray Blas de Rodríguez
The next day Juanillo recruited other Guale chiefs to his cause. The marauders sent word to the Guale chief on St. Catherine’s Island to kill the missionaries there. Juanillo himself remained on the mainland, and with his enlarged force he moved north to the village of Tupiqui. Here lived the Alcantaran Fr. Blas de Rodríguez, with whom Fr. Corpa had conferred. Fr. Rodríguez was surrounded by Juanillo’s men and told that his death was at hand. The friar was held hostage for two days. On September 16 he offered a last Mass and gave a sermon.
 
My sons, for me it is not difficult to die. Even if you do not cause it, the death of this body is inevitable. We must be ready at all times, for we, all of us, have to die someday. But what does pain me is that the Evil One has persuaded you to do this offensive thing against your God and Creator. It is a further source of deep grief to me that you are unmindful of what we missionaries have done for you in teaching you the way to eternal life and happiness.
 
After the Mass Fr. Rodríguez distributed his belongings to his faithful children and gave them instructions to always obey God’s law. The priest was bound, and in this posture he watched the Indians profane the chapel. Having reduced the chapel to ruins, the Indians turned their rage on the helpless priest, whom they clubbed to death. Fr. Rodríguez’s body was left in the woods for several days until it was buried by a Guale Christian; the remains were later recovered by Spanish soldiers.

Martyrdom of Fray Miguel de Añon and Fray Antonio de Bádajoz
The missionaries on St. Catherine’s Island were Fr. Miguel de Añon, a Spanish noble with a reputation as a preacher who was in charge of the St. Catherine’s mission, and his assistant and interpreter Br. Antonio de Bádajoz. Although sympathetic Indians warned the two missionaries of the impending attack, they did not flee; perhaps there was not time, or they did not believe the warning, or they hoped for martyrdom – none today can say. Rather than seek escape, they offered a Mass. Fr. Añon gave Br. Bádajoz communion, and then they were killed, the lay-brother first and then the priest. The date was September 17 – the anniversary of St. Francis’s reception of the Stigmata. Their mutilated bodies lay under the hot the sun until Christian Indians buried them at the base of a large wooden cross that Fr. Añon had erected.

St. Francis Receives the Stigmata (Giotto)

Martyrdom of Fray Francisco de Veráscola
Juanillo’s war party proceeded south to St. Simon’s Island. There they killed Fr. Francisco de Veráscola as he was returning in a canoe from St. Augustine with supplies. The Indians, much afraid of Fr. Veráscola’s great physical strength – he had been nicknamed the “Catabrian Giant” – feigned friendship: two of the warriors took him into their arms at the riverbank while the rest set upon him with their stone axes. After killing Fr. Veráscola – the date is uncertain, but fell before the end of September – the warriors mutilated and buried his body. Father’s Franciscan hood and sombrero were later retrieved from the Guale who had claimed them as trophies, but his body was never found.

Passion of Fray Francisco de Avila
The Indians continued south in search of Fr. Francisco de Avila, who dwelled in the Talapo mission on present-day Jekyll Island. When Juanillo’s band arrived with news they said they carried a message from Fr. Rodríguez. Having received word of the death of Fr. Corpa, Fr. Avila refused to come outside. The Indians broke into Fr. Avila’s hut; the priest attempted to escape, but he was pierced by three arrows and captured. Wounded and beaten, Fr. Avila was forced to walk a long distance to an Indian village where he was tortured further and condemned to die. The Indians abruptly changed their minds, however, and decided to keep the friar as a slave.

Fr. Avila was mistreated in captivity for nine months: in pain from his wounds, he was forced to serve even the village children. He endured cold and hunger, living off what food he could forage for himself in the bleak terrain and wearing only scraps for clothing. To spite the priest’s faith, the Indians tried to make him take a wife and perform other acts against his vows.

There the friar would have died, abandoned to the malice of his enemies, but he was rescued by a Spanish military patrol. Father was borne to St. Augustine, where he recovered his health. The lone survivor of the Guale massacres, Fr. Avila invoked clerical immunity when the Spanish governor asked him to testify: the friar feared that his words would be used as grounds to execute his abductors, and he was unwilling to incriminate them. It was only years later, after Fr. Avila went to Havana, that he wrote of his ordeal, and even then he did so only under obedience to his superior.

Aftermath
The initial slaughter grew into a general uprising, which was put down by Spanish soldiers in a great battle at Cumberland Island. Subsequent retaliatory raids against the Indians finally reduced them to total submission in 1601. By the end of 1603 the mission among the Guale were completely restored, though Spanish rule had been shaken and its forces depleted.

After the uprising a Spanish military force exhumed the remains of Fr. Añon and Br. Bádajoz on St. Catherine’s Island. The relics we transported to St. Augustine, where they were re-interred at the central friary with great honor and ceremony. Today that building is now the National Guard Armory, and is known as “The St. Francis Barracks.” A skull that could be that of Fr. Corpa was discovered by archeologists in 1950.

In 1612 the superior of the custody of Saint Helen (Santa Elena) reported to the Spanish king:

Although the Indians did not martyr the friars for the faith (that is, because of any doctrine or article of faith which they preached), it is certain that they martyred them because of the law of God which the religious taught them. This is the reason the Indians themselves gave and still attest to...

The Guale and the other coastal tribes remained under Spanish governorship for the next 75 years. These subject tribes were finally dispersed at the end of the 17th century by English-armed Indians on slave raids for the Charles Town traders. All surviving Guale were incorporated into the growing Creek Indian Confederacy.

St. Catherine’s Island Today
St. Catherine’s is now owned and operated by a private foundation: one can travel to the beaches, but visitation to the interior is not permitted. The island serves as a zoological sanctuary for breeding endangered species: the subtropical haven now hosts colonies of lemurs, gazelles, zebras, hartebeests, parrots, cockatoos, and Madagascar turtles.

Archeologists have visited the island to search for remains of the Indian villages and Spanish settlements. After copious excavation, the mission chapel was unearthed, and numerous medals, rosaries, crucifixes, and other artifacts were discovered. The archaeologists also discovered a large cemetery beneath the floor of the mission chapel. Upon completion of the excavation, the site was re-covered; the location of the site is not publicized to discourage unauthorized digging.

The Cause for the Georgia Martyrs
Four centuries later, the cause for canonization of the five Franciscan martyrs has been submitted to Rome by the Archdiocese of Savannah. If raised to the altar, these Spanish missionaries would join the three 17th century Jesuits martyred near present-day Auriesville as the only beatified martyrs slain on American soil.

Sources
* The Cross in the Sand by Michael V. Gannon (1993, 3rd printing, University Presses of Florida)
* St. Catherine’s Island: An Island in Time by David Hurst Thomas (1988, Georgia Endowment for the Humanities)
* The Franciscan Missions of Coastal Georgia by Gillian Brown (1985, The Cause of the Georgia Martyrs)
* “Man seeks sainthood for 16th-century friars” by Russ Bynum (April 08, 2007, Associated Press)
* “The Five Franciscan Martyrs of Georgia” web site - http://www.georgiamartyrs.org/

Attende Domine

Recently I read some political wag's quip that conservatives are essentially pessimists about mankind, while liberals are essentially optimists.

I'll offer a qualified reply: conservatives are essentially pessimists about mankind, while liberals are essentially pessimists about everyone except themselves.

For myself, I fall into the former camp: a fellow needs to recognize his failings as a prerequisite for seeking mercy.

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Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.
Hearken, O Lord, and have mercy, for we have sinned against Thee.

1. Ad Te Rex summe, omnium Redemptor oculos nostros sublevamus flentes: exaudi Christe, supplicantum preces.
Weeping we raise our eyes to Thee, sovereign King, Redeemer of all; listen, O Christ, to the prayers of suppliant sinners.
Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.

2. Dextera Patris, lapis angularis, via salutis, janua coelestis, ablue nostri maculas delicti
Thou art the right hand of God the Father, Headstone of the corner, Path of salvation and Gate of Heaven: cleanse Thou the stains of our crimes.
Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.

3. Rogamus Deus, tuam majestatem: auribus sacris gemitus exaudi, crimina nostra placidus indulge.
We Thy Majesty entreating, with Thy blessed ears hear our sighing; graciously grant pardon to our sins.
Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.

4. Tibi fatemur crimina admissa, contrito corde pendimus oculta, tua, Redemptor, pietas ignoscat.
We confess to Thee our consented sins; we declare our hidden sins to Thee with contrite heart; in Thy mercy, O Redeemer, forgive them.
Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.

5. Innocens captus, nec repugnans ductus, testibus falsis pro impiis damnatus: quos redemisti, tu conserva, Christe.
Led away captive, guiltless, unresisting, condemned by false witnesses unto death for sinners; O Christ, keep safe those whom Thou hast redeemed.
Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.

The Shush Man

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

On my first trip to Rome in August, 2000, one of the ports of call where I put in was the Sistine Chapel. Everyone, I think, hears about the chapel's ceiling, but somehow I had managed to miss the news that the walls themselves are covered with eye-popping art -- which is odd to me, in that most people who were in the chapel at the time treated the place as more of a museum or art gallery than a church.

On that note, there was a recording (in English, curiously) piped in over a loud speaker reminding everyone to observe silence. The reminder was necessary: most of the visitors carried on like they were at an amusement park or a museum. The only time they actually quieted down is when the little Italian man sitting in the corner let out a prolonged "SHHHHHHH!" His talent was much in demand -- I actually timed the guy -- because within 60 seconds of a given shush he was on to the next shush: the crowd, it turned out, would quiet down for just a few moments, but slowly, consistently, predictably, the whispers would give way to talking and then return to an excited din.

I didn't know what the man in the corner's official title was, so I dubbed him The Shush Man; perhaps his role is filed under some sub-category of librarian. I also wondered if the chap acquired his job through appointment, or whether it was inherited; I can imagine how he might thus declare " I am a Shush Man, my father was a Shush Man, and his father was a Shush Man..."