I was having breakfast today with an old friend from my newspaper days at the Brownsville Herald when the subject of "arreglos" came up.
You know, the "consideración," "anticipo," "renumeración," or any other name you want to call a bribe, or dinero abajo de la mesa to make things happen that one would consider improper or not following the established rules.
My former colleague was telling me of the time when one of his relatives from Monterrey was trying to get one of his kids either baptized or to get his first communion in the Brownsville diocese. The ritual – or process – required that his relative be present for several classes to be given by a local priest.
Since he was in Monterrey and had to travel weekly to take the classes, my friend's relative asked him to inquire whether anything could be done – un arreglo – so that he didn't have to come all the way from Monterrey just to attend an hour's class every week. My friend said he chided his relative and told him that things weren't done that way here as if they were "en el otro lado del charco," (the other side of the Rio Grande.)
"Ask anyway," his relative asked.
Sure enough, when my friend asked the priest at the church (who happened to be white), he was told that a $60 "offering" could be accepted instead.
That reminded me of a book written by Dr. Clotilde P. Garcia where she translates "Cartas y Documentos" of Captain Pedro Lopez Prieto, the commander of the military garrison in Camargo, Tamaulipas in the 1780s. Garcia was a most accomplished woman born in Cuidad Victoria, Tamaulipas whose mother came from the original settlers in Camargo in the 18th Century. She like her brother Hector Garcia, became medical doctors and were leaders of the Mexican-American community in South Texas.
In 1940, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1943, she married Hipolito Canales of Hebbronville, but subsequently divorced. They had one child, José Antonio (Tony) Canales who would become a distinguished Corpus Christi attorney and serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
Anyway, one of the documents she included in her book (San Felipe Press, Austin, 1975) was the dispensation given to Prieto and Doña Antonia Margarita de la Garza, both widowers, to remarry by the Catholic authorities of Camargo in 1783. The bride was the daughter of Jose Salvador de la Garza, who was given the Espiritu Santo Land Grant by the Spanish Crown just two years earlier in 1781 and established the first ranch (Rancho Viejo) in what is now Cameron County.
Since both had been left alone after their spouses had died, there was no impediment to the marriage there. However, However, they were related in third and fourth degree consanguinity (first or second cousins) something forbidden by the Church.
Since in those days there was no civil authority over marriage, the church had to be consulted before the ceremony could be performed.
In her narrative, Dr. Garcia notes that all the church heavyweights made their recommendations and came up with a solution that paid respect to the Almighty, the Holy Church, and the clerical hierarchy that ruled over the spiritual lives of the rancheros of that period.
The decree, issued by the Juzgado Eclesiasticode la Villa de Nuestra Señora de Santa Anna de Camargo on April 23, 1873, said it would allow for the marriage to go forward if:
1. The couple would perform a penance of four months of praying on their knees five mysteries of the Rosario de Maria Santisima,
2. To confess and take communion on the day of the wedding and on the two first wedding celebrations
3. That the groom – or a substitute chosen by him – perform four months of labor under the supervision of the church foreman
4. That the bride knit – with her own hands – altar cloths for the church where they were to marry
Dr. Garcia documents that after the couple had met the ecclesiastical requirements of the prelates and the jury, they were married by the church months later despite their degree of consanguinity.
See, tode se puede arreglar!
3 comments:
Rene Oliveira is a sinner. Confession can not forgive him. He will be heading to the devil's dungeon. He represents evil
SHADDUP, BOB, you fucking lloron! She's gone, buey. Se la llevo otro vato y se acabo el pedo. Tu llanto no suena, cabron!
So true, so true. That happened a lot in those times when primos had to get permission to marry each other to keep the land in the family. But not so long ago, I remember that someone committed suicide in the church and so the real rrunrrun in the community was that he would not be able to be received in the church for his funeral. Lo and behold, he was, but as I remember, he was a prominent member con dinero in Brownville. I bet that is what happened!
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