Osteria d’Assisi – Santa Fe, New Mexico
Historians have characterized the discovery, exploration, and colonization of the Americas in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as having had three express purposes: glory, gold and God. This holds true in New Mexico where Spanish Explorers may have come for glory and gold, but finding neither, stayed for God. Believing the large population of native peoples needed to hear the Gospel, the Spaniards established New Mexico first as a colony then as a mission. The effort to Christianize the native peoples was led by Franciscans, known then as the Sons of St. Francis of Assisi. The sandal-shod Franciscans carried the Gospel throughout the Indian pueblos, indelibly imprinting Franciscan spirituality into the fabric and soul of New Mexico’s Catholicism. Evidence…