SAN FRANCISCO
44U
SAN FRANCISCO
who was consecrated at Zacatecas, 4 Oct., 1840. He
was born at Lagos, State of Jalisco, Mexico, 17 Sept.,
1785, and joined the Franciscans at the age of seven-
teen. Ordained priest 13 Nov., 1808 he was succes-
sively master of novices and vicaj of the monastery of
Our Lady of Guadalupe, and laboured zealously giv-
ing missions in the to\\-ns and cities of ISIexico. In
1S30 he was appointed Prefect of the Missions for the
Conversion of the Indians in California, and set out
for this new field with ten missionaries from the col-
lege of Our Lady of Guadalupe, reaclung Santa Clara,
where he took up his residence. The missions of Up-
per CaUfomia were then in a very demorahzed
state, owing to secular and pohtical interference and
persecution. Their utter ruin was averted by the
zeal of these priests until after the jjassage of the de-
cree of secularization by the ^Mexican Congress in
August. 1S34. The destruction that followed this
was so \%-idespread that in the summer of 1836 he went
back to Mexico, and by a persistent appeal to its con-
gress secured the repeal of the decree of secularization
and an order for the restoration of the missions to the
Church. Business in connexion with his order de-
tained him in Mexico for several years, and then
as he was about to return to CaUfornia he received
notice of his appoint ment as bishop of the newly-created
diocese which contained eighteen of the twenty-one his-
toric Cahfornia missions. Most of them were in ruins
when he arrived at San Diego on 11 December, 1841,
to commence the disheartening task of saving what he
could of tiie \\Teck left by the plunderers of the era of
secularization. By heroic effort he opened a semin-
ary at Santa Ynez 4 May, 1844, and by word, deed,
and example did everything possible to re-estabhsh
the missions, but his health failed, and returning to
Santa Barbara in January, 1842 he died there 13
April, 1846.
Very Rev. Jose Maria Gonzalez Rubio, O.F.M., the vicar-general, was appointed administrator before the bi.-^hop died, and the choice was ratified by the Arch- bishop of Mexico. The condition of the diocese may be seen from the statement of the administrator made in a circular letter dated 30 May, 1848, and addressed to the people. "Day by day" he said, "we see that our circumstances grow in difficulty; that helps and resources have shrunk to almost nothing; that the hope of supplying the needed clergy is now almost ex- tinguished; and worst of all that through lack of means and priests Divine worship througliout the whole dio- cese stands upon the brink of total ruin". The date of this letter is the same as that on which the Treaty of Queretaro was signed, ceding Cahfornia to the United States.
Amerimn Rule. — When Upper California thus be- came part of the United States, the Mexican Govem- meiit refused to permit an American bishop to exer- cise jurisfiiction in Lower California. To meet this difficulty Pope Pius IX detached the Mexican terri- tory from the Diocese of San Diego or Monterey, whir-li ha/l been erected by Pope Gregory XVI 27 April, 1840, and by decree of the Sacred Congrega- tion of Propaganda, 1 July, 1854. divided Upper Cali- fornia \nU) the two dioceses of San Francisco and Monterey. By Brief of 29 July, San Francisco was mafic an archbishopric, with ]\Ionterey its suffragan see. As Bishop of San Diego or Monterey, the Rev- erend Joseph Siwloc Alemanj', O.P. (q. v.) had been consr-crated in Rome by Canlinal Fransoni 30 June, 1S.50. He was apprjinted Archbishop of San Fran- cisco, and took po.ssession 29 July, 1S.')3. Before all this occurrefl, Father Gonzalez as a^lministrator be- gan to take measures t-o provide for the needs of the people, an<l in a cirrular appeal for aid, dated Santa Barbara, 13 June, 1S49, he tells his flock that he hits asked for priests from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and from the Jesuits of Oregon.
In the autumn of 1849 Father John Brouillet, then
Vicar-General of Nesqually, Oregon, landed at San
Francisco on a visit, and as he was the only priest in
the vicinity who could speak English, the spiritual
destitution of the thousands about the town trying
to reach the newly-discovered gold fields touched him,
and he remained there to minister to them. A few
months later Father Antoine Langlois, a Canadian
secular priest who had been labouring for six years in
the north-west and was then on his way to Canada to
enter the Society of Jesus, joined him, and by direc-
tion of his superiors also remained at San Francisco.
He has left an "Ecclesiastical and Rehgious Journal
for San Francisco" in MS., which is preserved at
Santa Clara College, and in this he relates: "The first
Mass said in the Mission established in the city of St.
Francis Xavier [sic] was on June 17th, 1849, the third
Sunday after Pentecost; Father Brouillet . . . was
special!}' charged to yield to the wishes of the peojjle
and labour towards the building of a Church and hold
divine service therein. A beginning was made by the
purchase of a piece of ground 25 by £0 varas, after he
had called the more zealous Catholics together and
opened a subscription of $5000 to pay for the lot and
the building to be erected on it. . . . Religion now
began to be practised in spite cf the natural obstacles
then in its way by the thirst cf geld".
Father Brouillet then returned to Oregon, and to succeed him in the mission Fathers Michael Accolti and John Nobili, S.J. reached San Francisco from Oregon 8 Dec, 1849 to establish in the diocese, in re- sponse to the invitation of the administrator, a house and college of their order either at Los Angeles or San Jose, the latter being at that time the chief city of Northern California. These two priests played a very prominent part in the subsequent development of the Church and Catholic education in the diocese. Father Accolti tried to obtain assistance from his brethren of the Missouri and other provinces of his order, and finally in May, 1854 succeeded in having the California mission adopted by the Province of Turin, Italy. In May, 1852 Father James Ryder, S.J., of the Maryland Province visited San Francisco and remained four months on business connected with the society. In March, 1850 two fathers of the Con- gregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary arrived from the Sandwich Islands, and shortly after four others of the same Congregation from Valpa- raiso. They were immediately invited to establish themselves in the old missions in Southern California and only one of them icMiiained at San Francisco. This was Father Flavian Fontaine, who started a school there, as he spoke EngHsli fluently. This school failed after some time, and occasioned much trouble owing to the debts he left on the jiroperty, which were assumed by Father Nobih, who inider- took to continue the school as an adjimct to Santa Clara College which he had founded near San Jo.s<'\ The Dominicans, represented by Father Anderson, were also established. He received faculties from the administrator 17 Sept., 1850 and was appointed pastor at Sacnimento, where he fell a victim to cholera early the following year. The "Catholic Directory" for 18.50 has this report- from California: "The number of clergymen in Northern California is about sixteen, two of whom, the Rev. John B. Brouillet and Rev. Antoine Langlois, are in the tf)wn of San Francisco, where a chapel was fledicate*! to Divine wor.ship last June. The reverend clergy there have also made ar- rangements for the opening of a school for the in- stniction of children. The (Catholic population is variously estimated at from fifteen to twenty thou- sand".
Racial differences had made some trouble which the afiminist rator hoped t he advent of the English-speak- ing Jesuits woukl help to settle. In a letter to Father Accolti from Santa Barbara on 5 March, 1850, he says:
