From the desk of the pastor for Feb. 1, 2026

The Lord be with you! Continuing our history of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, we need to touch upon the missionary efforts of the Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries. This time period marked a great growth of the Catholic Church and some significant challenges in the New and Old Worlds.

When Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas for Europe in 1492, he had not been looking for new peoples or new lands but a more efficient route to the Far East. The Silk Road that had connected China and East Asia to Europe from Roman times had shifted into the seas. Traders from the Ottoman Empire and India dominated the movement of goods - especially spices - across the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and then to Europe. Columbus and other explorers had been working on finding a way for Christian countries to sail to China, India, and the Spice Islands directly.

By 1500 Spain and Portugal realized that Columbus had not found a route to India but to a new landmass. Calling it the West Indies since he had traveled West, other explorers and conquistadors followed into North and South America. Their first efforts focused on the Caribbean islands and Mexican coast but soon began penetrating South America on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. When it became clear that the tribes there had never heard of Christ, missionaries began journeying with the Spanish and Portuguese soldiers.

In North America the first martyr was Juan de Padilla, a Franciscan missionary. He and his companions had set out originally with Francisco Coronado who was looking for the Seven Cities of Gold. Fr. Juan explored from the coasts of Texas all the way to the Grand Canyon and even into Kansas spreading the Good News along the way. He was killed by the Guas Tribe in modern day Kansas in 1541.

Although North America did not contain any major organized political states, Central and South America did. The most famous of these were the Aztec Empire in Mexico and the Inca Empire in Peru and Chile. What the Spanish found in Mexico horrified them: human sacrifice on a mass scale. The blood of victims would literally flow down the sides of the Aztec temples, which were step pyramids. As the Spanish conquistadors defeated the Aztec tribes, Mercedarians and then Franciscans baptized the Aztec and other native tribes. Starting with the elites, the tribes accepted the Faith and rejected their pagan idols. The extent of the change is staggering: Fr. Motolinia alone likely baptized 400,000 native people! Not everyone converted, but the vast majority did so.

Although the Church grew by leaps and bounds in the Americas, she struggled to convince the European powers to treat the native populations with respect. Much evil would befall the peoples of America and Africa due to greed and the lust for power. The Church may not always get her message heard, but in every age she has tried to do what she can.

In His Sacred Heart,

Fr. John