Bishop John Baptist Salpointe: The cleric who built things
There was no operating church in Arizona when Salpointe’s party of four — three priests and a teacher — came from New Mexico in 1866. Salpointe, newly named vicar general of the Arizona missions, was their leader. He was a Frenchman who had arrived in America as a missionary six years earlier. Within two years of his arrival in Tucson, Arizona’s status in the church was elevated to a vicariate apostolic and Salpointe was named bishop. His territory stretched east to El Paso and north to Utah. Over the next 15-plus years, he oversaw the establishment of many parishes and schools — Prescott, Phoenix and Tombstone among them. He eventually became archbishop of Santa Fe, but returned to Tucson after his retirement.
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Learn more about the leaders, citizens and rogues who made Arizona what it was by statehood …
1825: John Baptiste Salpointe, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Arizona, is born.
