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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Nuns Want Resting Place Moved
By Kiera Hay
Journal Northern Bureau
SANTA FE — The Catholic religious order responsible for founding and running St. Catherine Indian School for more than 100 years is seeking to have the remains of more than a dozen sisters removed from the school's small cemetery.
The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament say the property's current owner, Albuquerque businessman Max Tafoya, has failed to properly maintain the cemetery despite a contractual obligation to do so.
"Over the years, we have become concerned because of the lack of care of the cemetery. Despite the fact that this area was recently groomed, it is our desire to have the remains of our Sisters moved to Rosario Cemetery. We have been in communication with the family of Edward O'Brien and they would like his remains to be moved with the Sisters," said Sister Sandra Schmidt, general treasurer for the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, in an Oct. 19 letter to the city of Santa Fe's Historic Preservation Division.
There were 15 sisters laid to rest in the cemetery between 1904 and 1983, according to Schmidt. O'Brien, an artist, was buried there in 1975.
The sisters want Santa Fe and the state of New Mexico, both of which have given historic status to the cemetery, to grant permission to remove the remains and headstones.
Santa Fe Historic Preservation Division acting director David Rasch told the Historic Design Review Board earlier this week that the question for the city is actually to decide whether to downgrade the cemetery's status as a landmark, which would allow for the graves and headstones to be disturbed. The state has already indicated it has no objection, but the city takes the lead in such cases, he said.
Any actual move would probably have to be negotiated between the nuns and Tafoya.
Albuquerque-based Tafoya purchased the 18-acre property, off Griffin Street next to Rosario Cemetery, from the Pennsylvania-based Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in 2005.
The first school founded by Philadelphia heiress and nun Katharine Drexel, St. Catherine closed in 1998 after 111 years of operation. Drexel was noted for using a $20 million inheritance to open Catholic schools around the Southwest for American Indians and African-Americans and was canonized as a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2000.
When the property was sold to Tafoya, the contract stipulated Tafoya would "provide perpetual care for the cemetery," according to Schmidt.
"A letter was sent to Max Tafoya, the current owner of the property, and his response stated, 'We have no need or desire for the Sisters to be relocated. Their presence is a visual testament to their service both to St. Katharine Drexel and to the St. Catherine Indian School,' " Schmidt wrote in her letter.
But, she continued, "Despite this statement, we still want to go ahead with our plan so that we will be assured of the perpetual care of the area where our Sisters are buried."
Schmidt said the order's plan is to have the remains disinterred by French Mortuary and moved to Rosario Cemetery, ideally in the spring of 2010.
Messages left for both Tafoya and a representative of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament were not returned on Wednesday.
Over the past several years, various plans to do something with the now-vacant St. Catherine property have sputtered out.
The most complete plan to develop the property, for condominiums and a charter school for disadvantaged children, was dropped by developer Don Tishman in early 2007. Tishman withdrew his plans a few months after the City Council decided in December 2006 to grant much of the property, including the cemetery, landmark status. That status meant any development plan would be subject to review by the city's Historic Design Review Board and redevelopment would be more difficult. Eleven of the school's buildings have been on the State Register of Cultural Properties since 2001.
Other plans have also died, including one by Tafoya to sell the property to the federal government as an expansion to the nearby Santa Fe National Cemetery and a lease of one of the campus' 19 buildings to St. Elizabeth Shelter.
Another no-go proposal was an elaborate idea by Tafoya for a three-way land deal between himself, the city and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would have resulted in the campus being entrusted to the city.
City officials have also spent the past few years toying with the idea of purchasing the campus, but have yet to offer up anything concrete.
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