Interview No. 507
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University of Texas at El Paso ScholarWorks@UTEP Combined Interviews Institute of Oral History 8-8-1978 Interview no. 507 Bishop Emeritus Sidney M. Metzger Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.utep.edu/interviews Part of the Oral History Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Interview with Bishop Emeritus Sidney M. Metzger by Oscar J. Martinez, Anne Reidmiller, and Sarah E. John, 1978, "Interview no. 507," Institute of Oral History, University of Texas at El Paso. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute of Oral History at ScholarWorks@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Combined Interviews by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IJNIVERSITYOF TEXAS AT EL P,qSO Ii\STITIJTEOF OML I{ISTORY IiITEiiVIEIIEE: Bishop Emeritus Sidne.yM. MetZ-ter (.|902- ) Ii.iTERVIEIIER: OscarJ. Mart AnneRei PRCJECT: }ATEOF II{TERVIEi{: AuqustB. 1978 TERYISOF USE: Unrestricted TAPEiIIO. : 507 TRANSCRIPTI'IO. : 507 TMNSCRIBER: Irene D. Ramirez .l982 DATETRANSCRISED: Januar.yll, BIOGMPHICALSYNCPSIS OF I}ITERVIEI{EE: (Bishopof El Paso,1942-1978) .|902 Born'in in Fredericksburg,Texas; studied at St. John'sSeminary'in San Antonio,Texas, and the NorthAmerjcan College in Rome,uhere he wasordajned in 1926. /pee biographicalsketch following transcript../ SUl4tIARY0F IIITERVIEI,J: jnterested'in priesthood; studies and ex- Biographicaldata; howhe .|920s; became the periencesjn priest SanAntonio, Texas, .l920sRome .l930s;in the experiencesas a in in the and experiencesas Asst. Bishopin Santa Fe, NewMex"ico in jssues from l94l;.l950s experiences .|970sas Bishop of E1 Paso, including Wl,rllIera, labor the to the (especially the FarahStrike), the lack of financial resources; the Churchand MexicanAmericans (including acquiring vocations for the priesthood); Oiscrimjnation; the ChicanoMovement; illegal aliens; the or- ganizationof the Catholic laity in E1 Paso; the CharismaticMovement in the Catholic Church;the Equal Riqhts Amendment;abortion; ordinatjon of womento the priesthood; contraception;Black Catholjcs in El Paso; integration. **Also includedare a biographical sketch, newspaperartjcles, and notes concern- '.+' Metzqer. Llfftt?.i t ^U?iiE?;? I /? horrrq Lengthof Transcript: ot Fages B'ishopEmer jtus Sidney.ll. lt'letzger by OscarJ- Martinez, AnneReidmiller. and SarahE. John August8, 1978 AR: First of all, Reverend,I wantedto begin with backgroundinformation about your life--where you were born, on the day, your parents. Sl4: t,rle11,a1'l the bjographiesgive that. Fredericksburg,Texas, and on July the llth, 1902. You knowwhere Fredericksburg is? AR: Yes, but why don't you tell us about wherejt's located? SM: l,'Jell,fine. It's an old Gernancolony that stated in 1846. Andmy grand- father camethere from my father's side during that year whenthe colony was founded. They camefrom the Rhine country in Gerrnany,not far from Koblenz,and they were stone masons. Thjs is quite an interesting colony. And so they a1l settled there. It was a colony that had peopleof al1 faiths, andthey,had the trades and professions and everyth'ingvery thoroughly organ- ized. A,ndthe person whowas the headof it was a Germannobleman named Freiherr VonMeusebach. Freiherr, of course, means...'it's a title of nobility. Andone of the very first things he djd wasmake peace with the Indians. The ComancheIndians were in all thoseplaces. So that is the background.It has remainedrather Germanto this day. If you go from here down/fo7 Austin, you can drive throughthere. It stjll hasthe atmosphereof the old days quite a bit. It's a very pretty town. I've beenthrough there. Andalso from mymother's side, the sarne. t{y grandfathercame from Germany, so they wereold.tirners there. Andmy father hada farm and retired then. 'little Rea11y,I spentvery t'imein Fredericksburg.I wentthrough the grade schoolsand St. l4ary's,the parochialschool there. It's quite a parish, a Catholicparish, St. l'1ary'sParish. Andthen I wentto whatwe call the high school seminarywhere /you wentl if you were boys that were thinking of becoming liletzger a priest and so on. That was in St. John's seminaryin SanAnton'io. AR: Andyou went there at an early age" didn't you? SM: I was about 13 whenI went. Yes, I had'fjnished, I guess, fiV grade school a little bit aheadof time or something. And so I thought that I'd like iust to fjnd out if I wantedto be a priest. I went downthere and I really did want to be a priest becauseI very muchloved the Mass, and I thought this js what I wanted to do. So then I stayed that way and I went to San Antonio to semjnarythere for sevenyears. And then I went on to Rome. AR: I wantedto ask you, whenwas the first time that you seriously considered becominga priest? Wasit whenyou went to St. John's? SM: Yeah,we]1, it waswhen I wasservinq Nlass. In other words,'it was,as I wouldsay, the sacrednessof the Massthat really attractedme. AR: Yourfam'i1y was Cathol ic. sr.t:Yeah,that's right. 01,1: Wasthere anyoneelse jn your family whohad becomea priest? SM: No, nobody. 0tvl: Wasyour family very Cathol'ic,very actjve? SM: All very Catholic. 0h, yeah, very active. 0hnyes' they were. But nobody ever told meto becomea priest. Soyou r parentsd'idn' t i nfI uence-vou . No. Absolutelynot. Nordid anyone...oh,when I told themthat I wouldbe, they sa'idthat it wasvery good. But no onehas said, "Youshould not," or "Youshou1d," one way or the other. I did all this myself. Andso the pastor wasa goodman, he wasa wonderfulexample. He was an elderly priest, also fromGermany. That was rather inspiring to me. Andso that's the way. I wantedto ask you aboutthe foundingof that townin 1846. l,rlasthat during Metzger the time of the Mexicanl,,lar, or was it before? SM: Thatwas before the Mexicanl,rlar. I think the l{exicantllar, rea'lly, it didn't last very 1ong. It wasover in 1848. 0M: 1847, really. Theysigned the treaty in 1848. SI,i: It really had nothingto do wjth the l4exicanl^lar. Thepeople left Germany especiallyat that time becausethere wasa lot of unrestover there. And someof themdidn't wantto servein the Pruss'ianarmy,.You know--that type of thing. 0f courseat that time Germanywas not united. Youhad all kinds of provincesand so on. That'swhy a lot of themleft. AR: Werethere manyMexican people who settled in Fredericksburg? SM: No, not at that tjme. There'renot very manypeople in Frederjoksburgnow, as far as I know. I rememberthere wasa little parish that wasstarted when I wasa child. But as I say, I left, you see. I wasoff to schoolall my life. So I can't give youall thosedetails. But I do remember,yes, there wasa... By the way,we did havea priest fromMexico. Let mesee, his name wasFather Galarza, a very lovely man. Hecame over from the persecutions and he cameup to Fredericksburg.And I knowthey had the chapeland all thesethings, andhe usedto say the massfor themand so on. Nowthat goes backquite a long way. But jt wasrather a smal'lgroup. 0M: Howfar backare we talking about,with thjs priest doing that? .l9.|5, SM: About...oh,must go backto around as far as I remember. 014: So there wasa small colonyof l'{exicanpeople. Slr'l:0h, yes, it wasat that time apparently. I think they werepeople that worked probablyon the ranchesand things. But they hadmass in town, AndI know that FatherGalarza, his nameI remembervery well. And he wasa very, very fine person. I think later on he passedaway then. So I don't knowmuch Metzger aboutthat history. After that I 1eft, of course. AndI don't knoweven right nowwhether they still havea Mexicanparish there or a missionor not. I'm not sure. But I can look that up, seewhat's'in the Catholjcdirectory, if there's a missionthere that wouldbe it. 0M: There'sonly onechurch. SM: [".il, St. Mary'S,which is the old parish. If you go there todayyou will see there are actually two churches. There'sthe old church,which was built by the oldtimers. I'm suremy grandfather and those people who were builders, they helpedto do that. Whichby the wayhas beenconsidered quite a monument of archjtecture,and they're trying to preserve'it now. Andthen the other, .|900s. the newchurch, was bu'ilt somewherein the early I guessI wasbap- tjzed still 'in the old church. Thenwhen I wasvery small I rememberthat they built the newSt. Mary'sChurch, as wecall it, andthat's nowthe parish church. Theold oneis just stand'ingthere. AR: Doyou go backvery often? Haveyou beenback to Fredericksburg? Si,l: 0h, yes, I go backfor a l'ittle while. Myfamily are practically all...of course, remember,in rnyown irnrnedjate family, my parentsare gonea long time ago. I still have,however, some /relativet. I hada nephewl iving there whopassed away, and lots of other relatives. Youhave to know,in these .|846. colonies,they started from thesefewold-timers who came in Thename Metzgeris very well known.I don't knowhow many there are now. Youcan see howthat spreadout over this time. Eventoday, this youngfellow who ./p1aye!/shortstop for the HoustonAstros (he's nowwith the SanFrancisco Giants), RogerMetzger, if you remember,he comesfrom that town, the whole fami1 y. 0h, 'is that right? He's from your family? Metzger SM: Yeah- But I don't know,I havenever traced all the distant relationships. But he's from Fredericksburg.And if he's from that clan, that meansthat's whatit is. AR: Did you all sharea love of baseball? SM: Yes, I like baseballvery much. But I, of course,I don't knowthis boyreal'ly. I only heardabout him when he wasgoing down to St. Edward'sCollege some years ago.