More than 200 men stood in neat rows on a school baseball field Tuesday afternoon as they read a special blessing from white prayer cards.
At Holy Spirit Catholic Church and School, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller led the gathering of priests and seminarians in a prayer for guidance as the Archdiocese of San Antonio prepares to mark its 150th anniversary.
Established by Pope Pius IX in 1874, the diocese is led by García-Siller, who announced that the milestone would be celebrated in the coming months with multiple events in each parish and at the Archdiocesan Assembly in San Antonio on Oct. 26.
“This is an occasion to reflect on the achievements we’ve made as a diocese, highlighting many milestones impossible to summarize this afternoon,” García-Siller said. “There have been successful initiatives, moments of spiritual growth, and above all, fidelity to God and his Church.”
The oldest diocese in the United States is the Archdiocese of Baltimore, established in 1789. The largest by Catholic population is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Representatives of the Catholic Church have been present in San Antonio for centuries. “In my office, I have registered baptisms since 1703, so it’s even more than 300 years since the Catholic Church was present, but it was not a diocese,” García-Siller said. San Fernando Cathedral, the mother church, was built in 1750.
Named Archbishop by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, García-Siller leads an Archdiocese with 170 parishes and hundreds of social welfare, health care and educational institutions.
The Archdiocese covers a 19-county region that stretches from east of San Antonio to the U.S.-Mexico border at Val Verde and Kinney counties.
García-Siller made the announcement before the annual Chrism Mass, a ceremony traditionally held during Holy Week, or the week leading up to Easter, to consecrate the oils used for sacraments and rituals in churches throughout the region.
The mass is the only time each year that the entire presbyterate of the Archdiocese made up of 180 priests who come from parishes and other institutions, is together in one location, Jordan McMorrough, a spokesman for the Archdiocese.
History of the Archdiocese
Standing before the diverse group of men, their ivory cassocks bright under the afternoon sun, Sr. Bernadette Mota also spoke about what the Catholic Church in San Antonio has accomplished.
Mota is mission advancement director for the Salesian Sisters of the Western Province, a religious order of women dedicated to educating youth of all ages, serving the poor and assisting women at risk.
“We impact the lives of thousands through our service to people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds,” she said. “Consecrated religious go to the peripheries and serve Christ and their neighbors through various forms of ministries, including health care, prison ministry, social services, advocacy, social justice and ministry to refugees and immigrants.”
Before 1874, the only Catholic Archdiocese in all of Texas was Galveston. That year, the pope established San Antonio as a diocese.
“Being a diocese made a difference in the recognition of this area,” within the community, said Sr. Jane Ann Slater, a member of a religious order of women known as the Congregation of Divine Providence, which established Our Lady of the Lake University and other schools and ministries.
“Instead of being governed, so to speak, or having our religious connector in Galveston, it was here in San Antonio.”
In 1926, the Archdiocese of San Antonio was elevated again — to a metropolitan archdiocese, which serves an ecclesiastical province made up of the San Antonio Archdiocese and the dioceses of Amarillo, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Laredo, Lubbock and San Angelo.
Other initiatives and events are planned to mark the centenary year of that transition in 2026, García-Siller said. “I seek to inspire hope and enthusiasm in all of you, people of God, for what lies ahead throughout pastoral initiatives, evangelization efforts, and more importantly, encounters and accompaniment with the people of God.”
Challenges ahead
Immigration and border issues will continue to test the Archdiocese in the coming years, García-Siller said, becoming physically animated as he spoke.
“We have great, great challenges: How to make our world, our habitat, more humane, how to promote the dignity of every human person, how to make people to live with all the challenges, the violence, the division, so many conflicts and poverty,” he said.
The archbishop addressed persistent poverty in San Antonio.
“We are advancing in many ways, but we have more poor in the Archdiocese than when I arrived,” he said. “I can say that we will contribute in any way possible to make San Antonio a better place to live, to breathe, to work, in which everyone counts. And that’s my hope and my prayer.”
The Archdiocese also announced it will offer a re-enactment of the Passion of Christ on Friday, March 29, starting at 9:30 a.m. at Travis Park, concluding in Main Plaza.
