The voyage that immortalized his name was nearing its destination. True, America was not his intended goal, for he fervently believed that God destined him to discover a new route to the East Indies. But the devout Catholic explorer, guided by a relentless faith, found instead an entirely new world.

When Menendez finally located the French base in September and then established his own, he named the harbor "St. Augustine." The first pastor of the future United States, Father Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, offered there a Solemn Mass in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on this feast day, September 8th, bringing together Spaniards and Indians in the first communal Thanksgiving of our country's first permanent settlement. It also marked the inception of the Parish of St. Augustine.

Menendez, while awaiting additional Spanish Jesuits, traveled the Florida coasts erecting crosses and leaving behind lay instructors at many points, particularly those where military outposts were established.

It required two decades from the time of their initial arrival at Santa Elena, Florida, in 1577, before the Franciscan Fathers could mobilize a full-scale missionary effort. Often, the Governor would escort them to an Indian village and, in full view of the assemblage, kneel down to kiss the hands of the missionaries as a sign of sacred authority invested in these men of God.

An Indian uprising decimated Georgian Franciscans in 1597, but within the century the Friars Minor organized at least thirty thriving missions at which 26,000 Indians were instructed in European arts and crafts as well as Catholic catechism.

Our nation's second church was erected in 1598-in San Juan, later Saint Gabriel, New Mexico. In that same year, "Nuestra Senora de la Soledad" (Our Lady of Solitude), the first hospital, was built in Florida. It was followed within a decade by our country's first school building, situated in St. Augustine.

Many of the Indians, meanwhile, became loyal friends and devout converts. They displayed to delighted teachers their intelligence by learning to read, often in less than two months, the dictionaries and devotional books prepared in their own language by Father Francisco de Pareja, a missionary who was constantly impressed by their eager acceptance of the faith of Christ.

Unlike the Spanish-who often in their search for gold and silver enslaved Indians as manual laborers-the French in their missions of the Great Lakes area were fur-trappers and found it expedient to befriend the natives who served as guides and traders. Many Indian souls were won by the dedicated labors of pioneer missionaries in this region, despite the treacheries of the warlike Iroquois tribes. Of these, the Mohawks were the most bloodthirsty.

St. Isaac Jogues, who is a saint of the United States, survived incredible tortures at the hands of the Mohawks after refusing to leave behind some captive Huron Indian converts. His companion, Rene Goupil, was tortured and murdered. Father Jogues served the village as a slave to allincluding the children-for almost a year before his escape. He returned to France with great honor, publicly revered by the Queen Mother and praised by Pope Urban VIII.

But Father Jogues went back to his mission field. He knew the language and the customs of the Mohawks and felt called to bring Christianity to them. In 1646, he returned to Ossernenon (now Auriesville, New York), the village where he had been held captive, and was fatally attacked by a tomahawk-wielding savage.

Contemporary Jesuit diaries describe in horrible detail the inhuman atrocities suffered by their brother priests on both sides of the Canadian border. But sometimes Indians unresponsive to the friendly overtures of missionaries were converted by the saintly examples of their prisoners.

Near the spot where others were martyred including St. Isaac Jogues-two Mohawk women were sentenced to death because they refused to denounce Christianity. One of them, her body brutally tortured before being consumed by flames, was the daughter of an Iroquois chief. Another chief's daughter, Kateri Tekakwitha dedicated herself to Christ throughout the illnesses and hardships she suffered. She died at the age of twenty-three.

Another French Jesuit missionary to the Indians was Father Jacques Marquette, who ministered to many Algonquin tribes and established a number of Indian missions before joining Louis Jolliet to explore the Mississippi River region. One of Father Marquette's last accomplishments for the Illinois Indians was the founding of the Mission of the Immaculate Conception, where he celebrated Mass on Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday, 1675. Soon after this, only a month before his thirtyeighth birthday, Father Marquette died, a priestly servant who had truly given his all.

The Spanish Southeast discovered that civilizing the natives still did not provide the peace and safety they cherished. Spanish and Catholic Indian settlements in Georgia and Florida suffered from fierce raids by the bitterly anti-Catholic French Huguenots. Their hatred was fanned by memories of their persecution in Europe and their barbarities outdid even those of the Mohawks.

Later, it was the English who came down from Carolina to do battle, killing many and taking hundreds of Indians as captive slaves.

Black slaves were already laboring on Virginia farms, the Pilgrims had colonized the coast of Massachusetts and were moving into Connecticut, New Amsterdam was the name chosen for Peter Minuit's incredible real estate purchase, when Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, established a Catholic-ruled colony in Maryland.

In the Spring of 1634, The Ark and The Dove brought these pioneers to their new home, St. Mary's, between the peaceful waters of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. A church building was erected almost immediately-this was the first religious toleration in the States-and within five years, at least four other parish centers were established, all spiritually cared for by Jesuits and some lay brothers. Many Indians-Patuxents and Piscataways were converted and some gave large land-grants to the Jesuits.

Father Andrew White, "The Apostle to Maryland," had been a victim of religious persecution in his native England, where his proscribed spiritual ministrations had been discovered and led to his banishment. He helped Lord Baltimore in his efforts to colonize Maryland, where he was pastor of St. Mary's Parish until 1638. Cecilius Calvert insisted on religious tolerance and accepted all, including people of the Hebrew religion, into his Christian community. Protestants, who were in the majority, held their own services. No "state religion" was imposed on anyone.

St. Mary's was but ten years old when Richard Ingle, "Champion of the Protestant Cause," invaded the colony, seized Father White and the other Jesuits and deported them to England in chains for trial as criminals.

Leonard Calvert recaptured the settlement, but upon his death in 1648, a Protestant, William Stone, became Governor. Maryland's Toleration Act was signed in 1649. Designed to protect Catholics and others from rising Puritan hostilities, it was actually less comprehensive than the unwritten religious policy enjoyed under Lord Baltimore.

Then, a few years later, the Puritans captured Governor Stone, outlawed Roman Catholicism, plundered Jesuit estates, forced all priests into exile, and executed several Catholics. Not until the re-establishment of Calvert rule in 1657 did normalcy return. Tobacco-growing and other farming, as well as some iron furnaces, then brought a certain level of prosperity.

The year 1674 saw the first documented ordination in this country. On a visit to St. Augustine, Bishop Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderon of Santiago, Cuba ordained seven young priests.

The English now controlled New Amsterdam, which they renamed New York. For years, religious and political turmoil was rampant both here and in the mother country. The once-popular Catholic Governor of New York, Thomas Dongan, and three Jesuit priests he had brought there, had to flee for their lives. The English colonies, including the once repression-free Maryland, were now to recognize none but the Anglican Church.

From the turn of the century until the Revolution , the Catholic Church was forced underground. A proliferation of abusive laws were effected in Maryland. In 1715 and in 1729, laws were enacted that allowed the government to seize an orphaned child (even if one parent was still living) and have him raised a Protestant. A 1718 law not only forbade Catholics to hold public office, but also completely disfranchised them. A 1756 law proclaimed that all priests' properties no longer belonged to them and that all Catholics were to be doublytaxed.

But the priestly servants of Mother Church would not forsake their beloved Mass. In Maryland, for instance, a "Mister" Thomas Mansell, whose true identity-Father Mansell of the Society of Jesus was known only to the faithful, began buying up land for a soon thriving plantation. Negro slaves labored on its farmlands. Tenant farmers paid rent to Mr. Mansell. Small shops and mills produced wares that were shipped from its river wharf.

Some noticeable differences in this plantation, however, began to arouse neighbors'suspicions. The proprietor was a bachelor and seemed to do a great deal of traveling. Other men lived there at times and they, too, came and went frequently. There was even a chapel in the house.

This establishment, which was named "St. Xavier," came to be known simply as "Bohemia" because of its location at the head of the Little Bohemia River. The academy organized there, under a cloak of secrecy, was a great bulwark of Catholic education, serving far more than the three states that met near its borders.

"Old Bohemia," the mother church of what is now the Diocese of Wilmington, is presently being restored as an historical site by a nondenominational organization, The Old Bohemia Historical Society.

Another illustrious priest who had to be secretive in his missionary wanderings was Father Ferdinand "Farmer" (an alias for his real name of Steinmeyer), a man who had given up the study of medicine in his native Germany to enter the Society of Jesus in 1743. Ordained in 1750 and originally assigned to the mission field of China, he was sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1752. Traveling constantly, he formed new congregations and ministered to existing ones.

In 1758, Father Farmer's permanent headquarters became old St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia from which he continued his surreptitious visits to places as far afield as Delaware, New Jersev. and New York City. Several times he celebrated Mass in the home of a devout Catholic who lived on Wall Street, and after the Revolution this New York City congregation became an important nucleus for Catholic immigrants flocking to the city.

His priestly concern extended to enemies as well. During the Revolution, he ministered to Hessians occupying Philadelphia. He gained such popularity among these men of his native tongue that he was offered a chaplaincy by the British forces. His belief in the American cause dictated his refusal.

The brave Father Farmer, who at times actually risked death to serve his people, has been termed "the Father of the Church in New York and New Jersey."

On March 3, 1699, the exploratory party of Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville, commissioned by King Louis XIV to found a colony in Louisiana, erected a cross at a site later to be named New Orleans.

The French were anxious to colonize their new possessions. When Antoine Crozat failed in New Orleans, a real "pro" stepped in. The charter granted to John Law and his Company of the Indies included these provisions:

John Law began his promotion in 1718-the year of New Orleans' official founding. He had promised to populate the new colony with six thousand settlers and three thousand Negro slaves. To the German farmers he was proselytizing he promised free land, fertile soil for four crops a year, fish and game of all kinds, mines of gold, silver, copper, and lead even "friendly" savages.

When Bishop Maurice Schexnayder of Lafayette spoke at the 250th anniversary celebration of the Parish of St. Charles Borromeo, Destrehan, Louisiana, on June 3, 1973, he told of the tribulations that plagued the emigrants:

Unlike many other individual immigrants who planned to make their fortunes and go back "home," the Germans did come in family units. Most were Catholics from eastern and southern Germany.

In 1722-23, a crude log chapel was erected by the first German Catholic settlers on the west river bank of the Mississippi, just thirty-eight miles above New Orleans. They called it "St. Jean des Allemands" (St. John of the Germans), here in this French colony where phonetic spelling of names by persons of differing languages would eventually obscure their origins. French Capuchin missionary priests cared for the tiny flock of faithful until a resident priest, Father Philippe de Luxembourg, arrived in 1728.