Will a border fence spell the end of a Texas chapel?
153-year-old landmark could be sealed behind barrier scheduled to rise next month
The white-haired priest stepped from the fog like a ghost, his robes and cowboy hat glowing in the predawn darkness like the sandstone chapel that he returns to again and again.
They call this one-room church rising above the banks of the Rio Grande “La Lomita,” the hill. Its plank doors were open earlier this month, as usual. As the man in white entered, the darkness deepened. There’s no light, no electricity inside, just steps from the river.
To the north rises a levee feeding orange groves that perfume the air. To the south, a tangle of chaparral lines the roiling, camo-colored river haunted by Border Patrol agents, smugglers and migrants. A priest once went missing in this brush – his horse found wandering – and he was forever known as the “Lost Missionary.”
The man locals call the cowboy priest is not perturbed by the swirl of shadows in the mist. It’s the chapel he worries about, a 153-year-old landmark that could be sealed behind a border fence scheduled to rise atop the levee next month.
It’s where Father Roy Snipes was ordained in 1980. He likes to tell stories about how priests once lived here in a bunkhouse with stables and a blacksmith. To Father Roy – a cleanshaven Santa Claus of a character who drinks Lone Star beer and cultivates a menagerie of pets including llamas and peacocks – La Lomita is more than a spiritual home: It’s a supernatural presence.
The chapel casts a spell on those who enter, he insists. The river winds by with a sacred, life-giving force. A border fence, he fears, would leave both landmarks “entombed” and “desecrated.”
And so, at age 73, he has led the way as church leaders, lawyers and parishioners have joined in fighting the fence. On Friday mornings, he rings the bell atop the whitewashed chapel by hand to summon opponents of the government plan.
Since late October, when the Border Patrol filed a lawsuit in federal court to condemn land around the chapel and begin surveying for a fence, Father Roy has spoken out. He worries it would block access and scare away the faithful, most of whom are Latino. It’s still unclear where the fence would rise, whether it would include a gate, and if it did, how the Border Patrol would control access.
“Maybe they’ll interrogate us on the way out, let the blue-eyed guys go and the brown-eyed guys get questioned,” said the blueeyed priest.
Border Patrol officials have insisted in court filings that the fence would help secure the border.
In a filing this month, government attorneys insisted that surveying the church’s land would not violate laws protecting religious freedom and that if church officials disagree with the fence in principle, they should take the issue up with lawmakers. It’s too early, the lawyers told the judge, to allege the barrier will affect La Lomita because, “The government has not finalized the nature of any permanent acquisition or how the diocese may be accommodated.”
The Catholic Church has so far sided with Father Roy. His bishop has opposed the proposed fence. Attorneys for the local diocese have attempted to stop it in court, arguing it would violate Catholic teachings, the church’s responsibility to protect migrants and the 1st Amendment right to religious freedom. Lawyers from Georgetown University have helped.
“The church wanted to take a stand early on,” said attorney David Garza.
The next hearing on the government’s condemnation request is Feb. 6.
As the legal battle plays out, work on the 25-mile, $1.4-billion fence project – already paid for by Congress – has proceeded. The fence is expected to be built atop the levee just north of the chapel, with a 150-foot “enforcement zone” to the south, which the priest fears will limit access to property owners and law enforcement.
Father Roy measured what he calls the “militarized zone.” He said it would extend on to the church property, across the graves of three of his pets (two donkeys and a llama), “right up to the wall of the chapel.”
This month, four Democratic senators – Charles E. Schumer of New York, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and and of New Mexico – requested Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen disclose how the diocese and other property owners will be affected by the fence.
Some of the priest’s dozen rescue dogs accompany Father Roy to Mass. On Jan. 18, he brought Charlotte, a black lab, and Bandito, a Rhodesian ridgeback mix. They were joined by about 30 locals, enough to pack the rough-hewn pews.
He says Mass here for weddings, and in times of drought prayers for rain. In autumn, he celebrates a mariachi Mass in honor of the Lost Missionary. In spring, he celebrates Palm Sunday with his two pet donkeys and with confessions under the mesquites until sundown.
By comparison, the Friday Mass was spartan. It was the sixth in a series of nine Masses in opposition to the fence, a rite Catholics call a novena. A deacon held a flashlight on the spare wooden altar so the priest could cue his battery-operated CD player. A cowboy trail song commenced with a lonesome whistle that echoed off the bare rafters.
“Move along, blue shadows, move along. Soon the dawn will come and you’ll be on your way,” sang Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. “Until the darkness sheds its veil, there’ll be blue shadows on the trail.”
Even the dogs hushed. An 83-year-old Korean War veteran whose parents had sung at Father Roy’s ordination rose to sing. The priest had forgotten his aspergillum, the holy water sprinkler, and used a backup bottle to bless the assembled.