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© Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Southwest
Franciscan Missions Development Office 2016
Welcome
Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Southwest Franciscan Missions Origin
In 1984, the Provincial Chapter of St. John the Baptist, the highest
goverining body of the Province, met for the first time in the
Southwest, and decades of disussion of the idea, the friars voted to
petition the general administration of the Franciscan Order in Rome
On the third of January, 1985, the Province of Our Lady of
Guadalupe was formally erected by decree of the Most Reverand
John Vaughn, the Minister General of Friars Minor, who was present
in the Cathedral of St. Francis in Santa Fe for the occasion.
Approximately 100 friars, all but a few living and working in the
Southwest, became the founding members of the new Province. At
the time, the friars were working among the Navajo and Pueblo
Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, as well as the Hispanic people
in a number of parishes. They were soon to be involved in the
ministry of the Word, preaching retreats and parish missons. The
Province’s headquarters was first established in rented quarters in
Albuquerque, then moved to Tepeyac House on Five Points Road
before relocating to the current Lakeview Road address in 1991.
New members came slowly to discern their vocation with the friars
each year. These new men could not offset the number of friars
who died or left the Order. As a result some of the friars’ mission
was relinquised to others in 1985. In 2000, the ministry of St.
Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, which had been staffed by the friars
under Franciscan Archbishop Albert Daegerwas since 1920, was
returned to the Archdiocese. In 1994 the friars stepped out in faith,
and committed two members to missions in Peru and maintained a
presence until 2003. The friars continued to work with lay ministers
among the Navajo, Pueblo and Hispanic of the Southwest and with
the ministry of the Word. In 1987, the Center for Action and
Contemplation in Albuquerque began as an exciting joint effort of
Franciscan friar Richard Rohr and many lay people to find new ways
to shore up the Word of God.
Southwest Franciscan Missions
Development Office
Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Click here for the 2020 letters from Brother Bruce in Vietnam
Click here for to see the beautiful Flowers of Vietnam
ivory parchment cards to benefit the Southwest Franciscan Mission
Easter Appeal Letter