Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Our Lady of Consolation ... in Texas

In 1867, while serving as pastor at St. Michael's in Findlay, Fr. Edward Vattmann started a mission parish in Carey. First known as St. Edward's, it eventually became Our Lady of Consolation shrine. Many years later, in 1907, Fr. Vattmann was involved with the Catholic Colonization Society of America, helping develop a town in Texas named, naturally, Vattmann. The parish in Vattmann was named after Our Lady of Consolation.

When the new shrine church at Carey was dedicated in 1914, Fr. Vattmann was present:


The church in Texas was destroyed by a hurricane in 1916, and only a bell survived, so the painting donated by the Carey church must have been ruined as well. But Our Lady of Consolation in Texas was rebuilt, and looks like this today:

Parish website:

http://ourladyatriviera.com/id4.html

3 comments:

irene said...

Interesting to me because my mother's family has roots in that area. But it is one of the most God-forsaken areas in the US (think of the Badlands, but flat).

What a stretch from there to Toledo!

ShariYS said...

Aaaghh ... it's right between Corpus Christi and Brownsville.

While Dolly was hardly any Katrina, let's remember them in our prayers nonetheless. They're getting some crazy rain down there.

irene said...

Shariys, I'm not sure what you are trying to imply -- that it is not God-forsaken?

Well, tastes do differ, but I see the 165 mi between Brownsville and Corpus as barren. And the 75 miles between Kingsville and Raymondville is barren, barren, barren. Almost no one lives there -- at least in the Badlands there are Indians. And that is why Dolly will be no Katrina -- because there is no New Orleans in the way. A category five could come ashore right opposite Sarita, and only the cows would know the difference.

(Sure, I'm exaggerating. But it's almost that bad.)