Hold Sacred Sacred

U.S. National Historic “Sacred” Site La Lomita Chapel in Mission, Hidalgo County, Rio Grande Valley

In domestic and international affairs, we are continually faced with a pattern of irreverence for sovereignty, sanctuary, or sacredness. An example is an administration in Washington that embraces Netanyahu’s Israel but grossly violates the Americas including the United States of America and their traditions.

M

ore News from Southern Border’s La Lomita

Federal authorities late last year justified “THE TAKING” of sacred land and sanctuary by citing U.S. “President “Donald Trump’s February 2017 Executive Order to ‘build the wall’” and “a 2006 U.S. Congressional mandate.”

In court these authorities also claimed that their intended activity (and no doubt that of their contractors for whom they will later deny all responsibility) “would not keep parishioners from their regular activity inside the church.”

This chapel in La Lomita Historic District is not only on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (recorded May 28, 1975), it is a critically situated sacred place for at least and not only two nations: Mexico and the United States.

L

a Lomita was originally established “as a halfway point for members of the Missionary Oblates (in Christian monasticism, esp. Catholic, Anglican, Methodist), people “dedicated to God or God’s service”) of Mary Immaculate, a sect founded in the 1800s that focused on marginalized or remote communities.”

It is historical for the whole Middle Valley community, one of its earliest sites, (and also) for the religious community.”

The Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte or Río Bravo in Spanish) is one of the principal rivers in the southwest United States and northern Mexico, “formed by the joining of several streams at the base of Canby Mountain in the San Juan Mountains, just east of the Continental Divide.” From there, it flows through the San Luis Valley, then south into the Middle Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico, passing through the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos, then toward Española, and picking up additional water from the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project from the Rio Chama. It then continues on a southerly route through the desert cities of Albuquerque and Las Cruces to El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. In the Albuquerque area, the river flows past a number of historic Pueblo villages, including Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo. Below El Paso, it serves as part of the border between the United States and Mexico.”

In the town of Mission, the original La Lomita Chapel suffered destruction by flooding but in 1899 the current building was built on the land “and served as the headquarters for missionary activity in Hidalgo County.” Thereafter, the mission “became a place of worship and local devotion.”

T

he debate in Teo Armus’ Series “The Taking”

GOVERNMENT 2018-2019

“Just before Thanksgiving 2018 federal authorities moved to take control of about 67 acres around the chapel, arguing that they need ‘immediate possession’ of the land in order to investigate it for future use — including, perhaps, permanently seizing it to build the wall.”

Government lawyers’ November 20, 2018, court filing: “‘Time is of the essence’”

“Federal authorities said in court filings that they want to use the land around La Lomita to ‘conduct surveying, testing, and other investigative work’ over a 12-month period in order to plan for roads, fencing, vehicle barriers and cameras designed to help secure the border.”

R

esponses Quoted by Teo Armus

December 19, 2018 Texas Tribune reporting

LEGAL COUNSEL for Plaintiffs

Brownsville lawyer representing the diocese, Daniel Garza

“You’d have the wall, and you’d have this 150-foot enforcement zone basically right against the church. They’d have to knock down some of the beautiful trees that have been there forever. You’d go from a green area to a gravel road.”

“This is the small fight before the big fight….Most people don’t fight the little fight, but we don’t believe in having anything related to a wall on our property, period”

PRIESTS

Illinois Oblate’s provincial leadership representative, the Very Rev. Louis Studer

“It has been and remains a true place of ‘sanctuary’ in every sense of that term — a place for safety, respite and worship, accessible to all, giving peace and security in human and spiritual form”

Father Roy Snipes, local priest

 “Everybody sees this as our mother church. It’s sacred in our memory”… “Our message is ‘come on in, we’re trying to make you feel at home.’  “Walling out our neighbors on the south side is just as sacrilegious as keeping us from our sacred shrine”

“Even if authorities installed a gate to access the chapel, if a wall is built nearby, parishioners would have to check in with Border Patrol every time they wanted to stop by…. ‘What happens to the altar boys who are all dark-eyed and dark-skinned?’ ‘Who goes down to the chapel to pray with papers?’”

Bishop Daniel Flores (Brownsville Catholic Diocese leader): 

“A wall is not an intrinsic evil but … a prudential social disaster”

Friar Bob Wright, Oblate School of Theology (San Antonio) professor

“The mission became a place of worship and local devotion….

It’s historical for the whole Middle Valley community, one of the earliest sites there, and for the religious community, too”

ELDERS

Local Parishioner Local citizen Andrea Chavez Garza  

82-year-old, afflicted with crippling arthritis since birth, makes 

a daily pilgrimage to the chapel La Lomita

“If I don’t go to the chapel, the day’s not complete…. That’s how I was raised. …

[F]or them to get rid of this beautiful, historic space? Over my dead body!”

73-year-old, clergy, “Cowboy Priest” Father Roy Snipes

His “beat-up van covered in stickers” reading “‘no wall between amigos’” - “Cariño (Spanish for “affection”) is what people are dying for”

Is it not reasonable to suggest that when voices of reason, voices of wisdom, sobriety and sanity protest, it is time to listen and learn? When actions or proposed actions hurt, or have far-reaching negative consequences, on so many levels — is it not time to reconsider, amend and revise the actions and/or approaches? Is it not time to garner the human courage of humility?

Sources

Texas Tribune (part of series “‘The Taking’ Inside the federal government’s haphazard, decade-long process of seizing private land for a border fence”) “In the Rio Grande Valley plans for a border wall ignite fight between church and state” “The Catholic Diocese of Brownsville is resisting the government's efforts to take over the historic chapel that gave Mission its name. And a man known as the ‘cowboy priest’ finds himself at the center of a national debate with local implications.” By Teo Armus December 19, 2018, https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/19/church-and-state-fight-mission-texas-border-wall/

KPFA (The) Evening News (Weekend) January 12, 2019 https://kpfa.org/program/the-kpfa-evening-news-weekend/

Weekend Edition Sunday NPR “Texas Chapel In Path Of Trump's Proposed Border Wall” “NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Father Roy Snipes, whose chapel sits on the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. The chapel may lose their land if President Trump's border wall plans move forward.” Listen· 5:40, January 13, 2019 https://www.npr.org/2019/01/13/684894879/texas-chapel-in-path-of-trumps-proposed-border-wall

Wikipedia

Situated in the Rio Grande Valley, Hidalgo County, Texas, town of Mission, La Lomita Historic District (recorded May 28, 1975) is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Hidalgo_County,_Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Lomita_Historic_District

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_Valley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande

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