History of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine of the Order of the Augustinian Recollects.
1. The Conciliar Crisis
The Second Vatican Council, held in Rome from October 11, 1962, through December 8, 1965, is, without a doubt, the central event of the Church in the 20th century.
It aspired, above all, to clearly define the intimate nature of the Church and its mission in the world. It asked the religious to examine their lives in light of the Gospel, the inspiration that led to their foundation, and the demands of modern society.
In 1968, with the Extraordinary General Chapter that embodied the Council’s directives in a new constitutional text, a new period began for the Order – and hence also for the Province of Saint Nicholas.
During this period, hope alternated with despair. Those were years of protest, of distrust in the law, and of songs of freedom, times of crisis that hit some Provinces, like that of Saint Augustine, already in the 1960s: between 1968 and 1974, the number of religious decreased from 115 to 82.
Saint Nicholas Province, for its part, would undergo this crisis two decades later. In 1991, its members totalled 457, just seven fewer than in 1970.
2. Community Life
Perhaps the main fruit of the conciliar renewal and the return to Saint Augustine was the interest in community life. The legislative revocation of privileges, coupled with a more accurate understanding of the monastic ideal of Saint Augustine, the vision of the Church as People of God, and the revaluation of the person characteristic of the moment, focused the attention of the Augustinian Recollects on the issue of fraternal relations.
In the case of the Province of Saint Nicholas, this was fostered by the fact that all its religious lived their final stages of initial formation in the same centres, Monteagudo and Marcilla, both in Navarra, Spain.
These two convents became a real melting pot for the new generations who lived together, knew, and appreciated one another. And not only them: many other Recollects from the other Provinces of the Order were formed in the same spirit, in batches.
In Marcilla, especially, almost all of those who would lay a solid foundation for the Philippine Province of Saint Ezekiel Moreno were formed, when it became independent from that of Saint Nicholas, in 1998.
Not only initial formation was involved. Emphasis was also placed on ongoing formation at different levels: community, inter-community, and interprovincial. Regularly organized were renewal courses, spirituality weeks, months of preparation for solemn profession, etc.
The fruit of all this was indeed a better understanding of our own charism, as well as a greater sense of family within the Province and the Order.
The digital era had not yet burst onto the scene, but it was very clear that internal information bulletins, which spread in a capillary manner, would be of great service to communal life: “OAR Al Habla” for the Province of Saint Nicholas (1970), and “Newsletter” (1969), and the “Seekers” (1976), for that of Saint Augustine.
Another factor that reinforced the identity as a Province and as an Order was the raising to the altars of a handful of religious: Saint Ezekiel Moreno, beatified in 1975 and canonized in 1992; the martyrs of Japan, Melchor de San Agustín and Martín de San Nicolás, beatified in 1989; and the martyrs of Motril, beatified in 1999, several of whom were formed in the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine and who worked in the Philippines before being assigned to the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova: Vicente Soler, León Inchausti, José Rada, Vicente Pinilla, and Julián Moreno.
Madrid in the 1950s
In 1954, a foundation diverged from centuries of rural tradition in Spain. Before 1835, only 25% of the 33 Recollect convents were located in significant cities, and the formation houses of the Province (Alfaro, Monteagudo, Marcilla, San Millán, Sos del Rey Católico, Lodosa) were situated in rural areas. This remained the case until 1954 when a residence was established in Madrid next to the university campus.
This house became the new provincial curia and the residence for many religious attending courses at the nearby university. In another part of the land, bordered by Cea Bermúdez and Gaztambide Streets, a temple of generous proportions and modern architecture, Santa Rita, was inaugurated in 1959.
It became a dynamic space for the district in Madrid and for the Province: it accommodated the Avgvstinvs Publishing House and Bookstore, the editorial offices of Avgvstinvs and Todos Misioneros [All Missionaries], and Talleres de Santa Rita [Saint Rita Workshops], a solidarity project with classrooms for dressmaking and clothes bank for the poor. It also served as the venue for two general chapters and three provincial chapters.
The year 1962 was significant: the community consisted of 44 religious members, eleven of whom were completing their pastoral year—the formation following priestly ordination—and nine were enrolled in university courses in geological sciences, romance languages, classical languages, philosophy and letters, journalism, and musical composition. At Santa Rita, they distributed 450,000 Communions; there were 126 nuptial masses and 60 solemn masses. In 1961, over 229 religious stayed as transient guests.
The circumstances soon changed; the provincialate moved in 1966. The building became a university residence hall for external students, managed by the Province until 2004, and subsequently by a private university under contract. Since then, only one Recollect community has remained in Santa Rita.
The house at Cea Bermúdez-Santa Rita has performed significant social work in the suburbs of Madrid, which were brimming with immigrants from rural outskirts. Based at Santa Rita, the religious served the barrio of Santa Catalina, where the Recollects established a medical clinic. Cáritas Santa Rita, inheritor of that social commitment, continues its intense activity to this day.
In 1965, the Province took on the responsibility of the new Parish of Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity in La Elipa, an area they had ministered to from Santa Rita. The pastoral ministry began in a borrowed space furnished with benches from the Santa Rita church. The religious lived in a rented apartment.
The church, along with its annexed parochial house, was inaugurated five years later. The social fabric of the barrio has evolved, yet its simplicity remains. The demographic shifted from immigrants from the provinces in the 1960s to Latino immigrants in the 1990s. The parish was returned to the Diocese in 2016, precisely one year after celebrating its 50th anniversary.
3. International Community
During this period, another event occurred that would profoundly change the composition of the communities.
Until 1970, Spain was a seedbed of vocations, necessitating the simultaneous maintenance of five formation houses for different stages. However, the progressive secularization of society and the decrease in perseverance, despite the selfless work of vocation promoters and formators, led to the closure of three seminaries: the philosophate in Fuenterrabia (Guizpuzcoa) in 1982, and the minor seminaries of Valladolid in 1992 and Lodosa (Navarra) in 1993.
A similar trend was observed in the United Kingdom, where until 1970, there were numerous candidates, almost all of Irish descent. Their numbers began to decrease, and from the 1990s onward, they were reduced to a token number.
Simultaneously, the Province began transferring the first stage of the formative cycle, where adolescents and youth study compulsory courses, to other countries.
In Mexico, the Saint Pius X Seminary has been operating in Querétaro since 1955. In 1981, a centre for philosophical studies was opened in Coyoacán (Mexico City), which was transferred six years later to the new and well-equipped Saint Augustine Postulancy in the same city.
In Costa Rica, vocation promotion was not systematically organized until 1984, utilizing the infrastructure of Ciudad de los Niños. In 1991, the new Saint Ezekiel Moreno Postulancy was inaugurated in Pozos de Santa Ana (San José).
After centuries of Recollect presence, the process in the Philippines is more advanced and complete. By 1985, young Filipinos could complete all the formation stages in their own country, having the minor seminary (San Carlos, 1947), postulancy for philosophical studies (Baguio, 1965); novitiate (Baguio from 1970, transferred to Antipolo from 1991); and theological centre (Quezon City, 1985).
In this way, the Philippine Recollection was preparing for its independence, which would be realized in 1998, with the establishment of the Province of Saint Ezekiel Moreno.
Ultimately, a consequence of all this is that, over time and in an increasingly progressive manner, Spanish vocations would decrease, while vocations from the Philippines, Mexico, China, Costa Rica, and Brazil would increase.
From the 1990s, a complex change occurred in the typology of the new vocations and the composition of the communities.
4. Depletion and expansion
Neither the vocation crisis nor the changes in its communities led the Province to discouragement or self-withdrawal.
Indeed, some ministries were handed over, like in the Philippines where the diocesan clergy was now abundant. In the 1970s, there were thoughts of transferring the historical territory of Palawan, which became a reality in 1987; and, between 1950 and 1985, 19 of the 21 parishes administered in Negros and Siquijor were handed over to the diocese. In exchange, pastoral care was undertaken in parishes near the residences or schools or in areas that were pastorally neglected.
The Province also expanded its presence in countries like Spain, Mexico, the United States, and Costa Rica.
In Spain, it was able to establish itself in Madrid in 1959, with the large complex of Cea Bermúdez and Santa Rita, a parish since 1965, as well as in the Parish of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, in the working district of La Elipa. In 1972, it opened the Parish of Saint Monica, in Zaragoza.
But not everything is urban ministries: the communities of Lodosa, Marcilla, Monteagudo and Zaragoza serve parishes in their rural surroundings; and the same availability is shown in the Diocese of Almería.
Where the expansion is clearest is in America. Not so much in the United States, a country where two contrasting trends can be seen. On the one hand, the then Province of Saint Augustine experienced a strong decline, going from 20 houses in 1975 to 11 in 1995.
On the other hand, the Province of Saint Nicholas consolidated its presence in the U.S. by directing English-speaking friars who had worked in the Philippines there. Its first ministry, that of Bayard (New Mexico), was assumed in 1973.
The Province was already in Mexico when the Vatican Council started, and by 1971, the ministries numbered 22, attended by 65 religious. It arrived in Costa Rica in 1965, at the chapel of Carmen, in Alajuela, and later at the Ciudad de los Niños in Cartago.
The expansion movement was especially notable in the missionary and social field. In general, with the Second Vatican Council, the number of religious assigned to the mission increased and their selection improved.
Later, even at the close of the 1980s, there was a flourishing of the missionary spirit, with greater support for the missionaries’ initiatives.
The timeline is, by all means, impressive:
- In 1963, the Province committed itself to collaborating with the diocese of Kaohsiung, Taiwan;
- In 1966, it assumed the Prelature of Ciudad Madera, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua;
- In 1974, it took charge of parishes in Guam (Micronesia);
- In 1977, it did the same with the canton of Sarapiqui, in Costa Rica, bordering Nicaragua;
- In 1979, it definitively assumed the administration of the Prelature of Labrea, Amazon, where the Order had been present since 1925;
- In 1996, the mission in Kamabai (Biriwa) in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone was accepted.
Sierra Leone: The Pioneer Province in Africa
The arrival of the Augustinian Recollects in Sierra Leone has a lengthy prehistory. In the minutes of the Provincial Council dated 7 December 1990, the possibility of a mission in Africa was mentioned for the first time. The Provincial Chapter of 1994 deliberated on the issue, as the Holy See had requested the Order to address the serious personnel needs expressed by African bishops.
The general curia subsequently transferred the request to the Province of Saint Nicholas for three reasons: it had a larger number of personnel; it operated ministries in English-speaking countries; and it would help prepare the future Philippine Province for an Ad Gentes mission upon its establishment.
On 29 December 1996, the five founders of the first Recollect community in Africa arrived in Sierra Leone.
The mission was located in a very poor and predominantly Muslim region. However, at that time, the main challenges stemmed from the political climate: a civil war had broken out in 1991 and was intensifying at the beginning of 1997.
On 14 February 1998, Fr. Garayoa was kidnapped. To avoid a similar fate, the rest of the community evacuated the mission post with the aid of heroic local volunteers. The kidnapped friar was released after thirteen days, and two more missionaries managed to leave the country on 11 March 1998. The last Recollects, Fr. Fernández and Fr. Lipardo, who had remained in Sierra Leone, finally left the country via Conakry in Guinea and arrived in Madrid on 12 January 1999.
When the war officially ended in 2002, after five years and three months, the Filipino Augustinian Recollects Don Besana and Edgar Tubio returned to Sierra Leone on 28 March 2004. The mission was by then under the management of the Province of Saint Ezekiel Moreno, which established a new community in Kamalo, 90 kilometres from Kamabai, in 2006.
The Catholic population was dispersed, necessitating travel across many kilometres on poor roads or by foot to reach the few faithful, who lacked social significance. Tribal customs exerted significant pressure on them: polygamy, entrenched machismo, initiation rites, female genital mutilation, secret societies, deceit, animism, child marriage, and the use of violence as a method of instruction.
The Province of Saint Nicholas continued to support the mission directly until 2004, providing religious personnel and development projects. Hundreds of academic scholarships for secondary and higher education were awarded. Numerous school buildings were constructed or renovated. Teacher training was prioritized. Small villages throughout the region gained access to their own deep wells of potable water. Many volunteer professionals contributed significantly to advancements in agriculture, energy, and healthcare. Schools in Spain mobilized resources of various kinds and embraced solidarity education.
5. Family, not just Order
The spirit of Vatican II inevitably had a profound impact on the lifestyle of the religious. On the one hand, placing the community at the centre led to a heightened appreciation for the family. On the other hand, viewing the Church as People of God led to a recognition of the role of the laity.
The existence of an Augustinian-Recollect family is seen by many as a novelty of the post-council era; all the religious are, at the very least, becoming more aware. This marked the beginning of a period of unconditional relationship and support.
In Spain and Mexico, where Augustinian Recollect nuns have been present for centuries, the Province makes itself available for them: they are and feel like full-fledged sisters of the friars; the same is true for the Province of Saint Augustine in relation to the monastery in the United States. The collaboration is, naturally, more intense in those countries where no other Provinces of the Order are present, such as Mexico or the Philippines.
With the Augustinian Recollect Sisters, founded in the 18th century and spread across the Philippines, there has always been a relationship, but recently it has grown closer as the number of Filipino Recollects increases.
The relationship has also intensified with the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries, whose origins trace back to the China missions, and whose mother house is near that of the Province, in Monteagudo.
The family circle is not limited to the women religious; the direct family of the religious also have their place, expressly recognized by the post-conciliar Constitutions; and those benefactors and collaborators who have received the distinction of “brothers or sisters general” for their support and service to the Order.
Some associations share the charism and mission of the religious, such as the Augustinian Recollect Secular Fraternity and the Augustinian Recollect Youth (RAY); others were born within the Province, such as the Saint Monica Christian Mothers, an association that originated in the Madrid parish of Saint Rita in 1987; some NGOs were established in Lodosa (Navarra) and Getafe (Madrid) to directly support the Province’s evangelization and mission work.
The Secular Fraternity was established in the 1950s. It has been most widely accepted in the then Province of Saint Augustine, which by 1951 had established it in all its ministries. They held their first convention in Kansas City in 1959 and a general congress in 1962. In 1967, their membership in the US reached 1,708, with 172 persons in initial formation.
One of the Fraternity’s principal promoters was Francisco Moriones, who took on the task of providing formation materials, for which he published a Handbook of Augustinian Spirituality in 3 volumes, that for years accompanied the reflection of the Secular Fraternities all over the world.
6. Empowerment of the Laity
The lay person gained a leading role with Vatican II, which presented the Church as People of God and devoted an entire document to the apostolate of the laity.
The Province of Saint Augustine wrote a brilliant page of involvement with the laity with the Cursillos de Cristiandad. In 1962, it opened a headquarters in Manhattan, the Saint Joseph Centre, with cursillos for adolescents, the cursillo of cursillos, and the school for leaders. By 1970, contact was maintained with 4,000 cursillistas, and in 1972, the movement was present in 75 New York parishes. From there it spread to the rest of the country.
In 1970, David Arias launched the family program Light and Life; two years later, there were 45 groups in 30 parishes. The following year, José María Viana (1936-1984) started the Association of Hispanic Priests in New York. And from 1978, Arias was in charge of the Hispanic Apostolate of New York (1978-1983) and ended up as auxiliary bishop of Newark (New Jersey) and vicar of Hispanic affairs.
In 1972, Alfonso Gallegos (1931-1991), parish priest of the conflict-ridden district of Watts in Los Angeles (California), was named director of the Hispanic Affairs of the Episcopal Conference in California.
In line with this direction in the US, the Province of Saint Nicholas assumed in 1997 the management of Centro Guadalupe (Union City, New Jersey) for the Hispanic Apostolate of the Diocese of Newark.
As for the rest, the Province’s collaboration with the laity opened avenues in every direction. In this aspect, the work in the educational field has to be emphasized, which gained great importance in Spain and Mexico. The opening of the large pre-university centres dates from this period: Valladolid (1966), Queretaro (1970), and Zaragoza (1976), as well as the students’ boarding house in Madrid (1965).
This significantly raised the cultural level of the religious who, upon finishing their ecclesiastical studies, enrolled in large numbers in centres of higher learning.
Initially, the majority of religious stayed in the centres, assuming almost all the teaching positions. But due to their significant increase, the participation of the laity was increasingly encouraged, with the religious focusing on values formation and safeguarding the centre’s vision.
The lay personnel first collaborated – in the years 1970s to 1990s – as faculty; later, they would rise to management positions, either in the department or in the institution as a whole.
7. The missionary front
Numerous missionaries had previously worked in the field of education, establishing many connections between schools and missions.
This led to a new maturity, which encouraged the arrival of new resources for the missions, the promotion of civic volunteerism, and the implementation of numerous social projects in Sierra Leone, Costa Rica, Mexico, and especially, Brazil.
From the 1990s onward, the Province worked in the main areas of social activity, including children, health, housing, water supply and sanitation, education, women’s equality, leadership formation, defence of rural Amazonian communities, and care for abuse victims.
Throughout this, the missions felt supported by all the ministries of the Province, the schools, the parishes, and the formation houses. The communities enhanced the dimension of solidarity that had always characterized them.
Thus, an uninterrupted flow of information, cooperation, volunteers, and resource provisions was established between them and the missionary front, ranging from twinning agreements and foster parenting to awareness campaigns, bazaars, meetings with missionaries, and various types of initiatives.
In some cases, these local groups evolved into mandated organizations (NGOs) with access to public funding for cooperation and development programs, making resources available for the Province’s projects that were previously thought unimaginable.
As a result, from the 1990s, projects of great impact and complex management arose, such as Handumanan (Bacolod, Negros Occidental, Philippines), Dignity Homes and Community Houses in Guaraciaba do Norte (Ceara) and Labrea (Amazonia), both in Brazil; access to drinking water and sanitation in Sierra Leone, Brazil, and Costa Rica; socio-sanitation projects in Mexico City; and prevention of abuse, exploitation, and child abandonment in Fortaleza (Ceara, Brazil).
A specific case is the support for the natives and river dwellers and environmental protection in Labrea (Amazonia, Brazil). The missionaries have been very active in the field of indigenous associations, protection of their ancestral lands, universal health, and protection of infants, adolescents, and mothers.
A symbol of this battles is Sister Cleusa Carolina Rody Coelho, an Augustinian Recollect missionary who was killed in 1985 and is currently in the process of beatification.
8. The Philippines and China
Two events of paramount importance for the Province occurred in the Far East during the second half of the 20th century.
The first concerned the Philippines: in 1998, the year of the first centenary of the Revolution that changed the face of the Province and the Order of Augustinian Recollects, the communities and ministries in the country formed a new Province – the eighth one – named Saint Ezekiel Moreno.
In a historical paradox, the Province of Saint Nicholas departed from what had been its historical territory for 375 years.
This was not a violent process, but a well-prepared one, which the Order’s authorities carefully monitored. The developments in the educational field serve as an illustration. The apostolate had splendidly developed over the last decades such that in 1998, some 40 thousand students were studying in the Philippine centres, two of which were universities.
The second event occurred in the China mission. It originated as an extension of the Philippines, its support base, until the advent of the People’s Republic and the closing of the so-called “bamboo curtain” in 1949.
For several decades, Chinese Recollects were completely cut off from the rest of the Province. Over those 30 years, almost all the religious had died, after years of forced labour and imprisonment.
However, in the late 1980s, communication was resumed and the embers of faith that had remained in the mission of Shangqiu were stoked, where some religious men and women remained steadfast in their faith.
The Holy See appointed Nicolas Shi (1921-2009) and Jose Wang Dian Duo (1921-2004) as bishops of Shangqiu (Henan) and Heze (Shandong), respectively.
The two were Augustinian Recollects who, after suffering innumerable harassments, found a way of dealing with the authorities. With the help of a handful of fellow men and women religious, the two pastors were able to resume pastoral service and revitalize their diocese.
At the same time, some of the Chinese religious who had managed to leave before the Revolution, being seminarians at the time, were allowed to return to the People’s Republic to visit their relatives and fellow religious.
Over time, the Order’s authorities (Prior General and Prior Provincial) and other non-Chinese friars were also able to visit the mission.
All these developments seemed to herald a flourishing spring.
NEXT PAGE: 7. 21st Century: Facing the Future
TABLE OF CONTENT
History of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine:
‘Always in mission’
- History of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine: ‘Always in Mission’
- 1. Introduction: “Navigare necesse est”
- 2. 17th Century: The Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine
- 3. 18th Century: The Philippines, Land of Heroic Deeds
- 4. 19th Century: The Philippines, Zenith, and Collapse
- 5. 20th Century until Vatican II: Breakthrough
- 6. 20th Century after Vatican II: High Seas Swell
- 7. 21st Century: Facing the Future
- 8. Epilogue: Living the present with passion and embracing the future with hope
