Taos News, Raices: October 7, 2024
In “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” novelist Willa Cather made Padre Antonio José Martínez an unsavory character. The truth, as the late journalist and author Richard Benke wrote in his 1994 story “History Shines Kinder Light on 19th-Century New Mexico Priest,” is more nuanced…
Padre Martínez also ministered to a group of people who would become the founders of First Presbyterian Church in Taos. The church came about because of two disparate events: the death of Padre Martínez and the availability of Presbyterian missionary James Madison Roberts. According to the church’s website, Roberts, his wife Martha and their two children had fled for their lives after trying unsuccessfully to minister to Navajo people in New Mexico and Arizona. While in Santa Fe, a group of Taoseños asked him come minister to them. Continue reading.
