Fray Angélico Chávez

American religious leader and writer

• Born: April 10, 1910
• Birthplace: Wagon Mound, New Mexico Territory (now New Mexico)
• Died: March 18, 1996
• Place of death: Santa Fe, New Mexico

Chávez was a Franciscan priest, as well as a noted historical writer, poet, novelist, artist, and archivist. His impact on the religious thought of the American West and on the literary scene in Santa Fe during the 1950’s through his death in 1996 was widely felt and acknowledged, as he did much to bring the colonial religious history of New Mexico to public and scholarly attention.

Early Life

Fray Angélico Chávez (fray ahn-JEHL-ih-coh SHAH-vehz) was born Manuel Ezequiel Chávez on April 10, 1910, in the town of Wagon Mound in northern New Mexico, the first of ten children born to Fabián Chávez and María Nicolasa Roybal de Chávez. As if growing up in a Catholic family in New Mexico, a land that had been long dominated by the Order of St. Francis, or Franciscans, was not enough to convince him to take the vows of a religious order, Chávez was exposed at an early age to Franciscan history, most likely when his family lived in San Diego, California, from 1911 until 1916, while his father worked as a carpenter at the Panama-California Exposition. His mother, who had been a teacher and had attended New Mexico Normal University (now called New Mexico Highlands University) in Las Vegas, encouraged him to pursue his education, and he attended a private school in Wagon Mound that was run by Don Zeferino Trujillo, who had the support of New Mexico’s famous archbishop, Jean-Baptiste Lamy. Chávez’s parents encouraged his literary aspirations, as they both read much, and the young Chávez had cultivated the reading habit by the age of five.

Chávez would later reveal in his writings that he first was attracted to the idea of the Franciscan Order during his family’s time in San Diego, and he expressed his desire to join the order during a Franciscan father’s visit to his school when he was in fourth or fifth grade. At the age of fourteen, he left his hometown to attend the Saint Francis Seraphic Seminary in Mount Healthy, Ohio, where he studied until he was fully ready to enter his vocation. It was at the seminary that Chávez’s academic world expanded with the study of Greek, German, and Latin. He read the classics, but he was also interested in philosophy, poetry, and mysticism. His interest in writing began to take shape, as he was encouraged by the priests who instructed him to express himself artistically through writing and painting. Along with the contributions to the seminary’s periodical, he painted historical portraits on the walls of the seminary’s new dormitory. It was because of his artistic talents that he was given the nickname “Angélico,” after the medieval artist Fra Angelico.

At the age of nineteen, Chávez took his first official vows, and his nickname officially became his Franciscan name. He was ordained in 1937 at Saint Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, becoming the first native New Mexican to be ordained a Franciscan priest in New Mexico after more than three hundred years of Franciscan presence in the region.

Life’s Work

The new friar’s first missionary assignment took him to southern New Mexico and the parish of Peña Blanca, which saw to the spiritual needs of three of New Mexico’s Native American pueblos: Cochití, Santo Domingo, and San Felipe. During his six years there, he enjoyed an excellent rapport with the region’s Pueblo Indians, whose traditions he respected and integrated into his presentations of the Mass. In 1943, he was called into active duty in the U.S. Army, becoming a chaplain serving the 77th Infantry Division in the South Pacific. His service during World War II inspired further writing in which he depicted the horrors of warfare in poignant words. He remained in the Army Reserves and the New Mexico National Guard, serving in Europe during the Korean War and attaining the rank of major. He was able to travel while in Europe, immersing himself in Franciscan and Catholic history and attaining a deeper understanding of the Spanish connection to his own home in New Mexico.

Although he had been active in writing about Hispano (Hispanic New Mexican) history and culture for nearly his entire adult life, Chávez’s most productive period began with his return from military service in 1952. He served for eight years at Jémez Pueblo and for five as pastor of Saint Joseph’s Parish in Cerrillos, New Mexico. In 1964, he left the pastorate in order to spend all of his time researching and writing. In 1971, he officially left the priesthood, although he remained consistently active as a scholar of New Mexican history, religion, and culture. In 1989, he moved to Saint Francis Friary in Santa Fe, where he spent the last seven years of his life immersed both in his studies and in the pleasures of daily life in the city. He died on March 18, 1996, after a brief illness and was buried at the Rosario Catholic Cemetery near downtown Santa Fe.

Significance

Fray Angélico Chávez was a multitalented scholar, artist, and priest. He was the archivist for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, cataloging and translating many colonial Spanish and Mexican records about the political, cultural, and family history of New Mexico. He traced the genealogy of many of New Mexico’s Hispano families all the way back to Juan de Oñate, the first Spanish governor of the region, who arrived in 1598. Among Chávez’s most well-received historical writings were Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period (1954), My Penitente Land: A Reflection of Spanish New Mexico (1974), and But Time and Chance: The Story of Padre Martinez of Taos, 1793-1867 (1981).

Chávez also wrote poetry and longer fiction, including short stories, such as those found in his New Mexico Triptych: Being Three Panels and Three Accounts (1959), and a novel, The Virgin of Port Lligat (1959). Seeing folklore as an integral part of New Mexican culture, Chávez collected and edited folk tales in When the Santos Talked: A Retablo of New Mexico Tales (1977). As a Hispano priest, poet, artist, and historical scholar, Chávez distinguished himself as one of New Mexico’s foremost literary and intellectual figures, occupying an indispensable place in the Santa Fe literary scene throughout much of the late twentieth century, and he has been called the region’s most important literary figure of the century.

Bibliography

Garcia, Nasarío. Introduction to Cantares: Canticles and Poems of Youth, 1925-1932, by Fray Angélico Chávez. Houston: Arte Público Press, 2000. The introduction to this collection of Chávez’s early poetry contains an excellent, detailed recounting of his childhood, youth, and early adulthood. .

McCracken, Ellen, ed. Fray Angélico Chávez: Poet, Priest, and Artist, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. This collection of essays analyzes Chávez’s literary production but also lends considerable light to his religious views and how they shaped both his personal life and his archival work and writing.

McCracken, Ellen Marie. The Life and Writing of Fray Angélico Chávez: A New Mexico Renaissance Man. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. A literary biography of Chávez, it presents a chronological account of the evolution of Chávez’s thought as expressed in his writings, as well as substantial information on his artistic works and religious thought.

Morgan, Phyllis S. Fray Angélico Chávez: A Bibliography of Published Works (1925-2010) and a Chronology of His Life (1910-1996). Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, N.M: Rio Grande Books, 2010. Published on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, this work, like Chávez himself, integrates literary production with his life events and religious thought.