| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MY FAVORITE PRIEST
An Hispanic godfather
of the Irish
By James Gilhooley
Faithfully I examine the stamps on letters mailed to me. Metered mail is for me the pits. Some of my friends realize this. So, they take pains to send me provocative stamps.
One such was mailed to me in recent days. The choice of somber colors do not make for an especially attractive first class stamp. However, the image and name it bears more than make up for its dullness. The figure is identified as Padre Felix Varela.
Unhappily my information concerning Padre Varela could have fitted on the stamp in question with room to spare. So, it was time to hit the Internet.
He was born in Havana, Cuba on November 20, 1788 and died on February 25, 1853. Between those dates, the 65-year-old padre squeezed in a fistfull and then some of exciting living.
He began his career as a priest in Cuba. He shortly became a renowned educator. His field was philosophy. But his life was the Gospels.
Padre Varela was among the very few who had the raw courage to demand that women be given the same education as men. Also he was an abolitionist—the first one of record in that then colony of Spain. He passionately wanted slavery to be abolished.
Not surprisingly his position did not go down well with the Spanish government or slave owners. He became as popular as a pro-lifer at an abortion convention. In the early 1820s, Varela was forced to become an exile. He had become a persona non grata. He was even sentenced to death in absentia by the Spanish royal house. He was never able to return to Cuba.
The Church in New York warmly welcomed this political exile in 1823. At thirty-five years, he was already a hero. He would remain such until he died. His work in New York was so distinguished over the next twenty-five years that he became the Vicar General of the diocese.
His primary attention was given to the thousands of Irish immigrants continually pouring into New York to escape poverty, hunger, and death in their homeland. One prominent and friendly figure of the time called them “the scattered debris of the Irish nation.” They arrived in New York harbor in their best rags. Their destitution was called “almost inconceivable.”
These people were my ancestors. And, if your blood is as green as mine, they are yours too.
In their strange New York home, the Irish had very few friends. In Padre Felix Varela, they found a strong protector and advocate. No doubt many of them had difficulty in pronouncing the name of this Cuban priest correctly. Yet, this did not disturb him. Their own surnames must have been a challenge for him.
Over many years, he labored to find jobs for them. He founded orphanages and nurseries for the youngsters of widows. As might be expected from an educator, he promoted the education of Irish boys and girls. He made attempts to improve their housing. He insisted upon the sacredness of their civil rights. He wielded a wickedly clever pen. And with it, he exposed the injustices worked upon them. They could not have been easy people to work with. The poor of any nationality seldom are.
Yet, without his help, the newly arrived Irish might have looked upon the oppressive squalor of their emerald isle as paradise.
When a deadly cholera epidemic hit New York in 1832, Padre Varela was constantly beside the Irish in various hospitals. It was as though, one commentator noted, he had moved into the hospitals and made his home there. The serious physical risk to himself he dismissed with a casual wave of his hands and unconcerned shrug of his shoulders. He certainly had nothing to fear from a sudden rendezvous with his Lord Jesus.
In a word, he had become the Godfather of the Irish in the New World. Without him, their plight would have been woeful. He remained by their side most of his working life. Finally, his health broken, he was forced to retire to St. Augustine, Florida to await death. Perhaps he chose that city because it brought him closer to his own homeland.
Ironically he is better known today in Cuba than in the United States.
Is there any descendant of Irish immigrants in the United States who is loath to offer aid to the new immigrants coming to our shores? Oftentimes these are the Hispanic kinsfolk of Padre Felix Varela. We Celts owe them just as we surely owe him. And anything we do for them can hardly match his herculean deeds for our own Irish ancestors.
The first class Felix Varela rightly belongs on a first class United States stamp.
You are invited to contribute to this series by sending in an account of a priest whom you admire. Articles should not exceed 800 words. The best of these will be printed. Send to “My Favorite Priest,” c/o Homiletic & Pastoral Review, 50 S. Franklin Turnpike, Suite 1, Ramsey, N.J. 07446. If you have a good photo of the priest, please send that also. Enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope, if you wish to have your article returned. . . . Fr. James Gilhooley resides in Montgomery, N.Y.—Editor
Back to Catholic Information Center on Internet