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Memory and mission · Colombia

A bold step, a great leap for the Eudists

120 years “in the land of the Lord of Miracles” — 1906–2026

“Corde Magno et animo volenti”

Reading translation of the Spanish document. Photographs and original layout remain available in the original PDF. Inconsistencies identified in the source are noted in the text.

Read the original PDF (Spanish) ↗

Presentation

“When four Eudist ‘gentlemen’ left Santa Fe de Antioquia and arrived in San Pedro de los Milagros on 30 May 1906, it never occurred to them that this small geographical step would have incalculable consequences for their Congregation. They came to carry out an apparently temporary mission: to transfer the minor seminary of Santa Fe de Antioquia to that town. It was a simple mission whose implementation was only beginning.” When we strive to do what we inwardly believe necessary and decisive before God, we receive an additional gift, both inwardly and outwardly. We may set out merely to fulfil an external commitment and suddenly find ourselves inwardly drawn towards something much more important and essential. We receive a “gift from heaven”.

Once that mission was accomplished, a new dawn broke for the Eudist Congregation, opening a vast horizon and field of action. The secluded village of San Pedro became a rock from which to take flight, a launching pad towards new heavens and new lands. Until then, the Eudists had climbed mountains, sailed seas and rivers and journeyed over peaks and through valleys. Now the time had come to take wing towards the heights and train their pupils in the demanding yet exhilarating exercise of boldness.

Nineteenth-century Colombia, like France at the end of that century, suffered the ravages of religious fanaticism, partisan radicalism and exclusionary social domination. Most minor seminarians surely never forgot their leaders’ lesson in boldness: they planted seeds of tolerance, openness and solidarity in their minds. With sensitivity and dedication, those Eudist pioneers trained their diocesan pupils in the art and science of human and Christian “astronautics”.

Surprisingly, this emerging eagles’ nest welcomed young men with the beginnings of an Eudist vocation. Thanks to the broad vision and generous solidarity of two bishops of Santa Fe de Antioquia, the minor seminary became the nurturing womb of these vocations. Seminarians and juniorists shared the same bread of learning and faith. Inspired by Adolfo Macé’s courage, Ernesto Dodard’s kindness, Pedro Buffet’s grace, Joaquín Evanno’s gallantry, Antonio Gastón’s standing, Joaquín García Benítez’s liveliness, Yvo Andrieux’s musical gifts and José Crespel’s spirituality, those young men soared towards the heights, overcame the gulf of prejudice and crossed the boundaries that kept them from being ecumenical, universal—in a word, Christian.

For a hundred years, Providence has taught the Eudists that boldness of spirit and courage in undertaking projects are not confined to short-term achievements. They are called to prepare and complete original, daring projects and to discern and train apostles of great stature. Standing on the shoulders of those “giants”, twenty-first-century Eudists can see the horizon more clearly. Their predecessors encourage them to write a new Eudist history full of boldness. From their nearby graves, they continue watching over the work they began with great sacrifice and brought to completion with immense joy.

Gerardo Velásquez M., Eudist, deceased.

The minor seminary: a prelude to the Eudist juniorate

In the early twentieth century, specifically in 1904, Santa Fe de Antioquia faced circumstances threatening its flourishing seminary, led by the Eudists who had arrived in 1888. It became urgent to move at least the minor seminary to a more favourable climate. Father Félix de Martini wrote to Bishop López de Meza: “Here everyone falls ill, everyone becomes exhausted, and in the end priests leave the seminary already weakened and unable to serve. This is a fact established by long experience. Studies suffer because everyone is unwell and they are frequently interrupted by the illness of pupils or professors… In cooler country the situation would change: there would be more pupils, better accommodation and lower expenses. They say that San Pedro offers great opportunities for comfortable, inexpensive premises.” In 1905 and 1906, the harsh climate and a deadly epidemic claimed the lives of an Eudist, Leonardo Lopera, and a seminarian, Miguel Ángel Muñoz.

These circumstances hastened the decision. On Bishop López de Mesa’s instructions, Fathers Adolfo Macé, Pedro Buffet, Joaquín Evanno and Ernesto Dodard set out for San Pedro on 30 May. The minor seminary was to open on 15 June, and it did. Local inhabitants had given the bishop a magnificent house and seven “cuadras” of land for building. A chapel dedicated to Saint Anne (1820–1874), belonging to Manuel Uribe, had previously stood there. The population welcomed the Eudists enthusiastically.

In Father Gerardo Velásquez’s words, “they appeared as simple workers on the seventh day of Creation, without ambitions of domination or a desire for the limelight. Those messengers and workers were, and still are, called Eudists. San Pedro de los Milagros welcomed them, and there they remained forever.” Reference: Gerardo Velásquez M., Un paso audaz en la historia de los Eudistas, on the transfer of the minor seminary from Santa Fe de Antioquia to San Pedro de los Milagros, LitoGlacial, Medellín, p. 11.

The minor seminary opened on 15 June 1906 in the presence of parish priest Fernando Palacio and mayor Emilio Gallón. Born in Belén–Medellín in 1852, Palacio was ordained at La Montañita, Yarumal, by Joaquín Guillermo González in 1881; he was parish priest of San Pedro from 1904 to 1908 and died on 20 November 1931. During fifteen years in San Pedro, the seminary witnessed a remarkable flourishing of priestly and professional vocations.

Historical truth cannot separate what life united. Following the minor seminary’s foundation in 1906, the juniorate came into being in 1908. Its first four students found a home within the seminary. The seventy-three priests, including four bishops, who experienced that relationship over twelve and a half years (1908–1921) testified that their formation was not diminished by the presence of juniorists. Same work, p. 34.

Visionaries and pioneers

The minor seminary passed through five stages before moving to Santa Rosa de Osos, benefiting from wise directors and formators.

Adolfo Macé — 1906–1909. Born in Vannes on 8 May 1870, incorporated at La Roche du Théil on 16 April 1893 and ordained in Rennes on 19 May 1894. He worked in the seminaries of Santa Fe de Antioquia, San Pedro and Cartagena before moving to Bogotá in 1929. A teacher of dogmatic theology, literature and science, organist and music master, he composed Masses, motets and hymns. He attended the 1920 Provincial Assembly. He died in Usaquén on 18 November 1944 and is buried in its burial vault. The booklet gives his age as 72, which does not agree with the birth and death dates supplied.

Antonio Gastón — 1910–1916. Born in Lorient, Brittany, on 25 February 1878, incorporated on 8 February 1902, ordained on 6 June 1903 and sent to Panama in 1904. His biographical notice states that he was superior of San Pedro minor seminary from 1909 to 1915, and subsequently of the seminaries of Jericó, Cartagena and Santa Marta. He died in Cartagena on 2 April 1952, aged 74, and is buried at Valmaría. The period in his notice differs from the heading in the original.

Joaquín García Benítez — 1917. Born in Bucaramanga on 14 April 1883, incorporated on 26 April 1909. He obtained a doctorate in theology in Rome, where he was ordained on 18 December 1909. He worked at Jalapa seminary, Mexico, from 1909 to 1914 and at San Pedro from 1914 to 1917. Appointed Bishop of Santa Marta on 17 February 1918, he was the third bishop of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary. He attended the Provincial Assemblies of 1920 and 1930. Archbishop of Medellín from 1942 to 1958, he died there on 1 September 1958, aged 75, and is buried in the metropolitan cathedral.

Yvo Andrieux Dahirel — 1918–1920. Born in Pleyber-Christ, Brittany, on 10 August 1881, incorporated on 8 February 1904 and ordained on 23 March 1905. He began his priestly ministry in Santo Domingo, in the seminary and parish recently accepted by the Eudists. Called up by France in 1914, he served until 1916. Demobilised in 1917, he was sent to Jericó seminary and elected fourth superior of San Pedro at 37. Ill health led to transfers to other seminaries in Colombia and Venezuela. He returned to France in 1931. The booklet places his death in Plancoët on “Good Friday, 20 April 1932”, aged 51; this source information requires verification.

José Crespel Chesnin — 1920–1921. Born in Théhillac, Brittany, on 4 May 1884, incorporated at Gyseghem on 8 February 1908 and ordained in Ghent on 2 May 1910. Immediately sent to San Pedro as teacher and bursar, he organised its 1921 transfer as superior, at Bishop Maximiliano Crespo’s request. He spent long periods at Santa Rosa, Jericó and Valmaría and attended the 1935 General Assembly. He died in Medellín on 2 August 1968, aged 84, and is buried in San Pedro de los Milagros.

Other pioneers were not rectors of the minor seminary:

Pedro Buffet. Born in Brittany on 8 July 1879, incorporated on 8 February 1903 and ordained in Ghent on 28 May 1904. He worked in Colombia from 1904 to 1928, was superior and builder of Jericó seminary, and attended the General Assemblies of 1911 and 1916 and the second Provincial Assembly in 1920. He died at his chaplaincy in Chevilly, near Paris, in a bombing on 26 August 1944, aged 65.

Joaquín Evanno. Born in Inxinza, Rennes, on 10 May 1881, incorporated on 8 February 1904 and ordained in Ghent on 19 June 1905. He worked in Colombia from 1906 to 1920 at San Pedro juniorate, built Las Angustias Church in Bogotá, and was chaplain to the Good Shepherd in Bogotá and Biffi College in Barranquilla. He died tragically there on 15 July 1920, aged 39, and is buried at Valmaría.

Ernesto Dodard. Born in Châteaubriant, Brittany, on 10 May 1878, incorporated on 5 June 1903 and ordained at Gyseghem on 19 August 1904. In Colombia from 1904 to 1929, he worked at Cartagena and Santa Fe de Antioquia seminaries and was one of San Pedro’s four founders in 1906. Parish priest of Arjona for eight years and of Turbaco from 1918, he became chaplain of Biffi College in 1920. He died in Cartagena on 15 July 1929, aged 51.

The later use of the minor seminary premises

After the transfer to Santa Rosa, seat of the new diocese, the premises served several missions.

1922–1927: “Indocrespo”, directed by Sister Laura Montoya, now Colombia’s first woman saint and foundress of the Lauritas, welcomed and educated Indigenous people from Antioquia’s Urabá region. According to the booklet, tensions and rivalries following the arrival of missionary bishop and founder Miguel Ángel Builes forced the sisters to leave the town “clandestinely”; Indocrespo disappeared.

1928: the De La Salle Brothers used the premises for their postulancy and novitiate.

1972–2026: when the Brothers left San Pedro, they sold the property to the Department of Antioquia, which made it available to the municipality for a school. It continues as Gabriela González de Múnera School, attached to Institución Educativa Pío XI.

By way of conclusion

Some events in the history of the local Church and our Eudist Congregation cannot remain mere memories. Born at a particular moment, they become fruitful seeds that continue bearing fruit in the Church.

Looking back in 2026 at the 1906 transfer is not simply recalling the past, but gratefully recognising God’s work. What was then an initiative and a decision can now be seen as a source of life, vocations, service, evangelisation and commitment for both Santa Rosa Diocese and the Eudist Province of Colombia.

Let us gratefully remember our predecessors who, Corde magno et animo volenti, shaped through their lives and self-giving what we are and have today. Let us also ask: if they faced their times’ challenges courageously, trusting in Providence, what do these new times ask of us, so that we may truly be a Church that nurtures hope? God holds the answer at history’s crossroads; our task is to discover it and set out resolutely, trusting like Abraham who, not knowing where he was going, believed the promises of the One who “calls into existence the things that do not exist”. This event’s true greatness is also measured by the life it continues generating today.

Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the late Father Gerardo Velásquez. His booklet Un paso audaz en la historia de los Eudistas. Traslado del Seminario Menor de Santafé de Antioquia a San Pedro de los Milagros has enabled us not to forget this chapter of Eudist history in Antioquia. The present booklet draws upon that authoritative source.

May infinite thanks be given to him for this ineffable gift.

San Pedro de los Milagros at the beginning of the twentieth century

Nineteenth-century Colombia, like France towards that century’s end, suffered religious fanaticism, partisan radicalism and social exclusion. San Pedro was no exception, although it escaped the devastation of the Thousand Days’ War (1899–1902).

San Pedro dates from 1624, probably as a mining settlement: the conquerors detected gold on the slopes of the Río Chico and Río Grande. In its early days it included a settlement of enslaved Black people brought from the Atlantic coast. The gold boom was brief, as richer mines were discovered at La Ranchería, later Villa de Jacinto de los Osos and now Santa Rosa de Osos. Poverty and barren land followed. Many emigrated to Angostura, Ituango, Carolina del Príncipe and other more prosperous areas. Deeply religious and home to the sanctuary of the Lord of Miracles, with patriarchal customs, San Pedro had 6,629 inhabitants in 1912, a simple and poor population.

When the Eudists arrived, the town already had religious and cultural institutions, a telegraph inaugurated in May 1876, and urban schools for boys and girls. Gerardo Velásquez describes the literary society “Aura del comienzo”: it fostered poetry recitation, readings of original compositions, criticism and study of Colombian and foreign authors among young people and adults. It published its own newspaper, and many literary and professional vocations emerged there. Luis López de Meza was among its distinguished participants and promoters. Same work, p. 12.

What better conditions could there be for establishing a seminary in San Pedro de los Milagros!

Photographs and credits

Photographs: Eudist Province of Colombia Archives. San Pedro chapel (undated); San Pedro streets (c. 1917); juniorate interior (undated); 1917 group: Rafael Álvarez, A. Rissel, P. Hardy, J. Crespel, M. V., L. D., R. Nossa, Yves Andrieux, F. Junel, J. García, P. Lacroix, A. Hays; another undated photograph; “The juniorists to the very reverend and dear Father Provincial” (c. 6 November 1936); San Pedro photograph, c. 1917.

Authorship: Saint John Eudes Spirituality Centre — San Pedro de los Milagros, Antioquia. Original photographs and layout: Eudist Province of Colombia. August 2026.