Let's do a bit of history, saying that by the middle of the seventeenth century, the spiritual conquest of New Spain was practically covered. Hardly the remote regions of the north, much abandoned at that time, still possessed orphaned mission places, generally inhabited by nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, which, both due to their abrupt geographical location, and their harsh and aggressive nature, had been inaccessible. to the contact of the religious.
Let's do a bit of history, saying that by the middle of the seventeenth century, the spiritual conquest of New Spain was practically covered. Hardly the remote regions of the north, much abandoned at that time, still possessed orphaned mission places, generally inhabited by nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, which, both due to their abrupt geographical location, and because of their harsh and aggressive nature, had been inaccessible. to the contact of the religious.
In the last third of the seventeenth century, the Franciscan Antonio Linaz de Jesús María —who had worked in the Franciscan province of San Pedro y San Pablo, Michoacán—, with his mind and heart set on the endeavor to bring knowledge of the true religion to the indigenous groups not yet reduced, he devised new methods that were more effective. On a trip to Madrid, he entrusted his different system of evangelization to a superior, and asked permission to recruit - with the full free will of those interested - 12 friars. Once his project was accepted, he was assigned the convent of the Santa Cruz de los Milagros de Querétaro to found the first College of Propaganda Fide. This happened on August 15, 1683.
This college had very important branches: San Fernando, in Mexico; that of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Zacatecas; that of San Francisco, in Pachuca; that of Our Lady of Zapopan; that of San José de Gracia, in Orizaba; that of Christ Crucified, from Guatemala, and that of San Luis Rey, from California.
The essence of his new methods could be specified in three points: a preaching tailored to the indigenous mind and psychology; the deepening of the true meaning of the missionary spirit, and the realization of an integral human promotion. It was seen that the spiritual always had to go hand in hand with the material: that is our human condition.
Immense were the fruits under this regime. Under him would work, more than half a century later, Fray Junípero Serra and his companions.
