Tema: Garcia Moreno – Model of a Catholic Statesman

The Search for Garcia Moreno’s Corpse Ends

Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
Our pilgrimage group moved from the Cathedral where Garcia Moreno’s macerated body was placed before Our Lady of Sorrows to the Dominican Convent of St. Catherine of Sienna. Dr. Francisco Salazar continued his story from the upper choir of its church, where we could see the place in the right hand corner where the body was finally discovered.


Above, St. Catherine's Church; below, the body was found at the altar's right
After the discovery of Garcia Moreno’s heart on April 11, 1975, Salazar was accompanied by the Bishop to the Dominican Convent, where his research led him to believe the remains of the President were hidden. The Bishop ordered the Mother Superior to cooperate fully in the search.

Decisive evidence appears

The next day, Dr. Salazar spoke with one of the older nuns, Sister Ana Maria Arroyo, who had some interesting information. She had four documents that affirmed that Garcia Moreno’s body had indeed been buried in the convent. One can to see how well kept secrets were in the silence of the cloisters.

She had in her possession three notes signed by a Sister who had safeguarded them for year, after they had been entrusted to her by another Mother whose family had been closely connected to Garcia Moreno. The first one, signed March 19, 1923, said, “I am going to die and I want to confide a secret to you that only a few Mothers know. The venerable remains of the Illustrious Martyr Gabriel García Moreno are in our Church, placed there by his son Gabriel in the company of the Very Reverend Fathers Vacas Galindo and Juan Maria Riera in 1895, when Alfaro took power in our Country. They are located where today we keep the Church ladders. This is recorded for when they will undertake his beatification. She told me others things that I am not saying here, since this seems sufficient.” (Encuentros, p. 23)

A second note, signed by the same Sister and dated February 28, 1941, added a detail: The body had first been buried under the main altar, but then removed because it was feared it might be discovered there.

The third, dated 1959 and addressed to the Cardinal from the Mother Superior at that time, was to notify him a priest had asked permission to search for the body of Garcia Moreno in the Church. The Cardinal’s reply, the fourth note, also dated 1959, explained there was no need to search for the location of the body of Garcia Moreno since he knew exactly where it was and could arrange for its exhumation when he deemed the time right.

But that Cardinal never judged the time right. He died nine years later without exhuming the body or telling anyone the secret. The only recourse for Dr. Salazar was to follow the lead of the main altar and the hint about the ladders. On April 14, 1975, he ordered workmen to raise the floorboards under the main altar. The space was there, but it was empty, as the note had affirmed.

Excavations, but no body

More floorboards were lifted to the right of the altar, then to the left, then on to the side altars. Dr. Salazar complimented the patience of the Mother Superior, who had to bear the checkerboard work he directed of lifting squares of floorboard throughout the Church.

The key question remained unanswered: Where were the ladders stored more than 20 years ago? No one knew. So Dr. Salazar returned to his best source of information, questioning the oldest sisters. One of them took him to the upper choir, where our group was standing that day, and pointed to a place near the door to the right of the sacristy. She recalled being told when she was still young that the Garcia Moreno’s remains were there. It seemed illogical – to store ladders in front of a door, or to bury a body in its doorway.


The hole near the side door Then he learned the door was only recently constructed, an addition made by the present Mother Superior as an entry for the priest so he would not have to use the main door. The walls around the door were searched. Nothing was found. The floorboards were lifted. Again, nothing.

At the end of the day, Dr. Salazar ordered the workmen to dig into the ground close to the door. Under the floorboards, the workmen found the supporting beam and, around it, earth. They poked the ground with bars. Suddenly, one of them plunged into an empty space. A hole! After removing the soil, they could see a large box in a space about 4 feet deep. The hole was dark, surrounded by earth.

“I’m going in,” Salazar announced.

“Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?” asked one apprehensive sister.

“Not a bit,” he replied, trembling with excitement, not fear, at the thought he was at the end of his quest. Candle in hand, he entered the hole and raised the lid of the box. He saw something bright reflecting the candlelight. It was a crystal vial. In it he could make out a photograph of Garcia Moreno. This is it, he thought. We have the remains of Garcia Moreno. He put his hand in the place he thought the head should be, but only felt some velvet cloth.

He brought the vial up, determined it should be opened and read before further exploration was made. Authorities were called as witnesses, and with two blows, the vial was broken. Inside was the photograph of Garcia Moreno with these words on the back: Portrait of President Garcia Moreno, assassinated August 6, 1875. The picture had been cut to fit in the vial and some of the words had been cut off. It also held two testimonial documents, one signed by a close friend of the President, Rafael Varela and the other by his brother-in-law Ignatius del Alcazar. (1)



At left, the crystal vial, at right front and back of the photo inside
For Dr. Salazar, the most significant line was in the document of Varela, which began, “For relatives or friends in memory of Dr. Gabriel Garcia Moreno.” “This is written for me,” Salazar thought. “I am not a relative or religious, but I am a friend.” He continued, “Still today, every time I retell this story, I am filled with emotion as I recall reading that line and the events of that day.”


The contents of the coffin Cardinal Munoz Vega was notified and arrived shortly to inspect the contents of the box. On its lid, they found the yellow nails spelling GGM. The body had decomposed and only the skeleton remained, as seen in the picture at right. Atop the skull was a velvet cap, which is what Dr. Salazar had felt when he placed his hand in the coffin earlier.

Official confirmation

During the medical examination of the body, it was noted that a small part of the skull was missing. A piece of the skull severed from the head of Garcia Moreno during the brutal assassination was housed at the Espinosa Polit Museum. So that remnant was brought to the Convent. It fit perfectly into the missing place in the skull. “For me and everyone present,” Dr. Salazar told us, "this was the final proof."“

Dr. Salazar placed the box and remains of Garcia Moreno into another coffin that he purchased. The Dominican Church was closed to the public, and on June 27, 1975, the Bishops of Quito met there to verify and officially proclaim that the skeleton was that of Garcia Moreno.



At left, Dr. Salazar lifts the skull to examine, at right, the Prelates examine the remains
On August 6, 1975, the 100th anniversary of the death of Gabriel Garcia Moreno, his remains were transferred with solemnity from St. Catherine Church to the Cathedral. There his corpse was placed in a crypt in a side niche to the left of the main altar, where the people of Ecuador - and pilgrims like us - can pay homage to him.

Later Dr. Salazar showed to my friend Judy Mead and me some of his prized relics that he kept in memory of his discovery: some of the lining of the cap found on the skull, the Paris tag and golden cuff from the jacket he was wearing, and his greatest treasure, the first cervical vertebrae from the body of Garcia Moreno.



At left, Dr. Salazar displays his treasures to Judy (in pink) and me; at right, the vertebrae of Garcia Moreno
We had the privilege to venerate that good-sized relic of the great Catholic President who had so valiantly and successfully defeated the Liberal policies promoted by Freemasonry in that turbulent period of South American history.

Our Lady of Good Success & Garcia Moreno

His interest in Garcia Moreno brought Dr. Salazar to the knowledge of Our Lady of Good Success. He was fascinated to learn that the Our Lady had foretold in the 1600s – with perfect accuracy – that a President would come in the 19th century who would combat Freemasonry, consecrate the Country to the Sacred Heart, and die a martyr’s death.



The crypt with Garcia Moreno's remains in Quito's Cathedral
By speaking of this man who boldly countered the Liberal politics of his day, I believe Our Lady was clearly showing her disapproval of the new notion of separation of Church and State, always condemned by the Church and Popes.

It is sad to see that today the post-Vatican II Popes and Hierarchy have aligned themselves with the principles of the Enlightenment, which are fundamentally the same ones that Garcia Moreno combated.

Our Lady of Good Success predicted not only the crisis in the Faith that we are experiencing today, but she also announced the restoration of the Church and Christendom. We who share the ideals of the “truly Catholic President” Gabriel Garcia Moreno are also privileged to participate in this fight to establish the Kingship of Christ on earth.

1. The texts of the two letters found in the vial can be read in Encuentro con la Historia, pp 245-255, or Encounter with History, pp. 185-191.

The Search for Garcia Moreno’s Corpse Ends by Marian T. Horvat

August 6 – Garcia Moreno: Heroic President of Ecuador

August 4, 2011

by José Maria dos Santos
Gabriel Garcia Moreno, heroic President of Ecuador, assassinated for his Faith and Christian Charity.


Manly Catholic of intransigent principles, slain by the enemies of the Faith because of his consistency and courage in defense of the Church and Papacy
Gabriel Garcia Moreno was born in Guayaquil, in southern Ecuador on December 24, 1821. His father, Gabriel Garcia Gómez was Spanish, while his mother, Doña Mercedes Moreno, was a member of the local aristocracy. Tragedy visited the family when the father died suddenly in his youth, shortly after losing his fortune. His young widow employed a priest to teach her son his first letters. Later, Gabriel continued his studies at the Colegio de San Fernando in Quito.
Moved by religious fervor, Garcia Moreno received minor orders in 1838, but became convinced that he did not have a priestly vocation and ended up studying law. After his schooling, Gabriel devoted his life to politics.
He became Commissioner of War in the northern jurisdiction, but in 1846 was involved with some periodicals that were highly critical of Ecuador’s government. Nevertheless, he collaborated with the regime during the threat of invasion by General Flores in 1847. He was an active member of the Municipal Council of Quito and later became Governor of Guayas.
Due to political turmoil, he was exiled in 1848 and traveled to Europe the following year.
When he returned, he dedicated himself to politics once again. In 1853, he successfully lobbied for Ecuador to receive the Jesuits expelled from Colombia.
He soon won a senatorial election, but was exiled a second time before taking his seat. During his deportation, he diligently applied himself to study in France. He worked so hard that his health began to suffer. During this time, he wrote: “I recognize that I have abused my strength and nearly did myself more damage. Neither my head nor my strength are proportional to the energy of my will.”1
Returning, he got involved in the cultural life of the country, where he fulfilled many important functions. In 1857, he was elected mayor of Quito and rector of the local university. Shortly, as a senator, he gained notoriety for his fiery speeches. On April 2, 1861, he became President of Ecuador.

A Providential Mission: Free the Country from Chaos
Originally, Ecuador and Venezuela were part of a larger nation called Great Colombia, which was created by Bolívar in the early 1800s, after the war of independence.
When Great Colombia collapsed in 1830, Ecuador became a nation. Revolutions followed that threw the nation into chaos. Bad government and sectional resentments ravaged the country to such an extent, that the Catholic Church was the only unifying factor in Ecuador.
Garcia Moreno took advantage of this situation to mold the government after the Faith, which was deeply rooted throughout the nation.
His work was difficult because Catholics had been practically orphaned by a lax clergy that often failed in its duties. Seminaries were decadent, religious instruction was wanting and whole sections of the population were left without guidance. Ecuador needed a strong leader. Garcia Moreno was so well suited for this task that even his detractors admit that he was the man Ecuador needed at that critical time.
Historian Calderón García described Garcia Moreno’s character and work as: “Indefatigable, stoic, just, energetic in his decisions, admirably logical in his life, Garcia Moreno is one of the greatest personalities in the history of the Americas.…In fifteen years he completely transformed his little country according to a vast political system that only death prevented him from completing. He was a mystic of the Spanish type, not satisfied with sterile contemplation, he needed action. He was an organizer and a creator.”2
Throughout his entire administration, Church doctrine guided his actions. “His philosophy was inspired in the classical doctrine of Thomism.”3
The cross carried by President Garcia Moreno during Ecuador's Holy Week procession.



Resolution of the President: Concordat with the Holy See
When Garcia Moreno assumed the presidency, the Church in Ecuador was beset with insubordination, immorality and laxity, due largely to an abuse of authority that limited the power of the Holy See regarding religious affairs. The president immediately drafted a concordat to correct this abuse.
The document’s first article gives the tonic note of the whole. It stipulates that the Catholic Church would continue to be the State religion and preserve the rights and prerogatives afforded Her by the Law of God and cannon law. All dissident worship was prohibited.
It states: “the instruction of the youth in the universities, high schools, colleges, public and private schools will all be in accordance with the Catholic Religion,”4 because “The Catholic Religion was one of the few bonds of Ecuadorian nationality…Catholicism is a force of political cohesion.”5 Thus, “the fundamental articles [of the concordat] were not attacked, nor were amendments proposed to them.”6

Consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
However, Garcia Moreno’s adhesion to the Faith was not limited to internal affairs. When the Papal States were invaded in 1870, Garcia Moreno was the only ruler in the world to protest. He wrote to the Minister of Foreign Relations of Italy, decrying the Italian government’s robbery of pontifical land.
The grateful Pope sent him a Decoration of the First Class in the Order of Pius IX with a brief commendation, dated March 27, 1871.7
“As a manifestation of solidarity with the Holy See, [Garcia Moreno] decreed in 1873, that the Supreme Pontiff be sent ten percent of the state’s tithes.”8
However, the most symbolic act of Garcia Moreno’s government was the ecclesiastical and civil consecration of the Republic to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During its ceremonial consummation, the president affirmed: “I recognize the faith of the Ecuadorian people, and that Faith imposes on me the sacred obligation of conserving its deposit intact.”9
Years before, a decree of the Constitutional Convention had declared the Virgin of Mercies Patroness of Ecuador.
Garcia Moreno's tomb in the crypt of the Cathedral of Quito



Assassinated for His Devotion to the Catholic Faith
This government, led by the religious fervor of its president, worried the Masonic sects, which immediately began planning his assassination.
Perhaps Garcia Moreno foresaw his demise. During this time, he wrote to Pius IX: “What a treasure it is for me Holy Father, to be hated and calumniated for my love for Our Divine Redeemer. What happiness, if your blessing were to obtain for me from Heaven the grace of shedding my blood for Him, Who, being God, willed to shed His Blood for us on the Cross!”10
On August 6, 1875, Garcia Moreno entered the Cathedral to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Conspirators interrupted his prayer to tell him he was urgently needed next door at the presidential palace.
Garcia Moreno immediately left the Church. While climbing the steps in front of the palace, a ruffian named Royo struck him in the back of the head with a machete, crying out: “death to the tyrant!” He then almost hacked off the president’s arms as he tried to fend off his assassin’s blows. Meanwhile, three accomplices shot him in the chest.
Mortally wounded, Garcia Moreno was then thrown down onto the plaza, where Royo struck him several more times on the head. While agonizing, he managed to wet his finger in his own blood and write on the ground: “Dios no muere” (God does not die).
He was carried quickly to the Cathedral, where he received Extreme Unction and died.
Learning the sad news, Pius IX declared that Ecuador:
distinguished itself miraculously by the spirit of justice and the unshakable faith of its president, who showed himself always a submissive son of the Church, full of devotion to the Holy See and of zeal to maintain Religion and piety in his whole nation…
So it was, that in the councils of darkness organized by the sects, those villains decreed the assassination of the illustrious President. He fell under the steel of an assassin as a victim of his Faith and of his Christian Charity.11
Footnotes

1. Cartas Inéditas. Garcia Moreno to Roberto Ascásubi. Piura, April 20, 1855: in Ricardo Pattée, trans. Cecília F. Vargas, Garcia Moreno e o Equador de seu tempo (Editoria Vozes: Petrópolis, 1956) p. 126.
2. Calderón García, Latin America: Its Rise and Progress (London: Unwin) p. 220, in Ricardo Pattée, p. 15.
3. Ricardo Pattée, p. 329.
4. 3rd article, in Ricardo Pattée, p. 151.
5. Belisário Quevedo, Sociologia Política y moral (Quito: Editorial Bolívar) 1932, p. 54, in Ricardo Pattée, p. 152.
6. J. Tobar Donoso, La Iglesia Ecuatoriana en el siglo XIX, Vol. I, in Ricardo Pattée, p. 159.
7. “El National,” n° 300, October 10, 1873, in Ricardo Pattée, p. 294.
8. José Felix Heredia, La Consagración de la República del Ecuador al Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Quito, Editorial Ecuatoriana, 1935, p, 198; in Ricardo Pattée, p. 295.
9. E. MacPherson.
10. E. MacPherson.
11. The words of Pius IX, in a public audience in Rome, on September 20, 1875, in Gary Potter, Garcia Moreno, Statesman and Martyr, http://www.fisheaters.com/moreno.html.


Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites

Estimado Hyeronimus:
Nuevamente te agradezco tus valiosos aportes del mártir Gabriel Garcia Moreno.
Me impresiono mucho las fotografías donde se lo ve muerto, pues tengo un trozo con sangre de su camisa, que es la que se ve en dichas fotos.
En el mismo cuadro "relicario" hay ademas de dicho trozo, un retrato, una "tarjeta de visita" con su nombre , y en el reverso una carta de su puño y letra escrita en 1860.

I'm glad for you. How did you get that relic? (Remember this is the English language forum).

La reliquia proviene de un regalo de un entrañable amigo, que a su vez la recibió en su momento de una persona que tuvo contacto ccon descendientes de don Gabriel García Moreno.
En mi ignorancia de la tecnología informática no sé de qué se trata "el foro de idioma inglés", pero supongo que estoy "metiendo la pata" al escribir en español, de modo que pido disculpas, y no apareceré mas en el mismo a fin de no entorpecer este hilo.
Cordiales saludos.

Sube a la cabecera del hilo y encontrarás este recuadro:

1. ATENCIÓNEste foro está pensando para que los interesados en el hispanismo que no hablan ninguna lengua hispánica puedan escribir o responder a los debates en inglés.Todos los debates y respuestas deben estar en inglés, de lo contrario el foro no tendría utilidad. Si quieres responder en alguna lengua hispánica, haz un tema nuevo en su foro correspondiente.
   Agradecemos la colaboración para mantener el foro ordenado.

Por medio de los foros inglés, francés e italiano damos más proyección internacional a Hispanismo y contribuimos a que gentes de otras lenguas y culturas conozcan mejor nuestra historia, religión, costumbres, filosofía, geografía, etc.

Un abrazo en Cristo

He told his assassins “God does not die!”

August 6, 2012
Garcia Moreno


Ecuadorean patriot and statesman; born at Guayaquil, 24 December, 1821; assassinated at Quito, 6 August, 1875.


His father, Gabriel García Gomez, a native of Villaverde, in Old Castile, had been engaged in commerce at Callao before removing to Guayaquil, where he married Dona Mercedes Moreno, the mother of the future Ecuadorean martyr president. Gabriel García Gomez died while his son was still young, and the boy’s education was left to the care of his mother, who appears to have been a woman of unusual ability for her task; she was, moreover, fortunate in securing as her son’s tutor Fray Jose Betancourt, the famous Mercedarian, under whose tuition young García Moreno made rapid progress. A great part of his father’s fortune having been lost, it was not without some considerable sacrifices that the youth was able to attend the university course at Quito. These material obstacles once overcome, he passed brilliantly through the schools, distancing all his contemporaries, and on 26 October, 1844, received his degree in the faculty of law (Doctor en Jurisprudencia) from the University of Quito.
Gabriel García Moreno, two term President of Ecuador who was murdered in 1876.

In less than a year after his graduation young García Moreno had begun to take an active part in Ecuadorean politics, joining in the revolutionary movement which eventually replaced the Flores administration by that of Roca (1846). He soon distinguished himself as a political satirist by contributions to “El Zurriago”, but what more truly presaged the achievements of his riper life was his good and useful work as a member of the municipal council of Quito. At the same time he was studying legal practice, and on 30 March, 1848, was admitted advocate. Immediately after this the deposed Flores, supported by the Spanish government, made an attempt to regain the presidency of Ecuador; García Moreno unhesitatingly came forward in support of the Roca administration, and when that administration fell, in 1849, he entered upon his first period of exile. After some months spent in Europe he returned to his native republic in the employ of a mercantile concern, and it was then that he took the first decisive step which marked him conspicuously for the enmity of the anti-Catholics, or, as they preferred to call themselves, the Liberals. At Panama he had fallen in with a party of Jesuits who had been expelled from the Republic of New Granada and wished to find asylum in Ecuador. García Moreno constituted himself the protector of these religious, and they sailed with him for Guayaquil; but on the same vessel that carried the Jesuits and their champion, an envoy from New Granada also took passage for the express purpose of bringing diplomatic influence to bear with the dictator, Diego Noboa, to secure their exclusion from Ecuadorean territory. No sooner had the vessel entered the harbour of Guayaquil than García Moreno, slipping into a shore boat, succeeded in landing some time before the New Granadan envoy; the necessary permission was acquired from the Ecuadorean government, and the Jesuits obtained a foothold in that country. How soon the report of this exploit spread among the anti-Catholics of South America was evidenced by the fact that within a year Jacobo Sánchez, a New Granadan, had attacked García Moreno in the pamphlet “Don Felix Frias en Paris y los Jesuitas en el Ecuador”, to which García Moreno’s reply was an able “Defensa de los Jesuitas”.
The cross carried by President Garcia Moreno during Ecuador's Holy Week procession.

In 1853 he began to publish “La Nación”, a periodical which, according to its prospectus, was intended to combat the then existing tendency of the government to exploit the masses for the material benefit of those who happened to be in power. At the same time García Moreno’s programme aimed distinctly and professedly to defend the religion of the people. He was already known as a friend of the Jesuits; he now assumed the role of friend of the common people, to which he adhered sincerely and consistently to the day of his death. The Urbina faction, then in power, were quick to recognize the importance of “La Nación”, which was suppressed before the appearance of its third number, and its proprietor was exiled, for the second time. Having been, meanwhile, elected senator by his native province of Guayaquil, he was prevented from taking his seat, on the ground that he had returned to Quito without a passport. After a sojourn at Paita, García Moreno once more visited Europe. He was now thirty-three years of age, and his experience of political life in Ecuador had deeply convinced him of his people’s need of enlightenment. It was undoubtedly with this conviction as his guide and incentive that he spent a year or more in Paris, foregoing every form of pleasure, a severe, indefatigable student not only of political science, but also of the higher mathematics, of chemistry, and of the French public school system. On his return home, under a general amnesty in 1850, he became rector of the central University of Quito; a position of which he availed himself to commence lectures of his own in physical science. Next year he was active in the senate in opposition to the Masonic party, which had gained control of the government, while at the same time he persistently and forcibly, though unsuccessfully, struggled for the passage of a law establishing a system of public education modelled on that of France. In 1858 he once more established a paper, “La Union Naciónal”, which became obnoxious to the government by its fearless exposure of corruption and its opposition to the arbitrary employment of authority; and once more a political crisis ensued.
Garcia Moreno carrying the Cross through the streets of Quito.

García Moreno was on principle an advocate of orderly processes of government, and that his professions in this regard were sincere his subsequent career fairly demonstrated, but at this juncture he was obliged to realize that his country was in the grip of a corrupt oligarchy, bent upon the suppression of the Church to which the whole mass of his fellow countrymen were devoted, and disposed to keep the masses in ignorance so as to sway them the more easily to its own ends. He had, years before, attacked “the revolutionary industry”, a phrase probably first used by him, in the prospectus of “La Nación”; it now became necessary for him to descend to revolutionary methods. Besides, the little Republic of Ecuador was at this time menaced by its more powerful neighbour on the south, Peru. García Moreno, if he was sure of opposition at the hands of the soi-disant Liberals, was also, by this time, recognized by the masses as a leader loyal to both their common Faith and their common country, and thus he was able to organize the revolution which made him head of a provisional government established at Quito. The republic was now divided, General Franco being at the head of a rival government established at Guayaquil. In vain did García Moreno offer to share his authority with his rival for the sake of national unity. As a defensive measure against the threat of Peruvian invasion, García Moreno entered into negotiations with the French envoy with a view to securing the protection of France, a political mistake of which his enemies knew how to avail themselves to the utmost. He was now obliged to assume the character of a military leader, for which he possessed at least the qualifications of personal courage and decisive quickness of resolution. While García Moreno inflicted one defeat after another upon the partisans of Franco, the latter, as representing Ecuador, had concluded with Peru the treaty of Mapasingue. The people of Ecuador rose in indignation at the concessions made in this treaty, and Franco, even his own followers being alienated, was defeated at Babahoya (7 August, 1860) and again at Salado River, where he was driven to take refuge on a Peruvian vessel. When his adversary had been forcibly driven from the country, García Moreno showed his magnanimity in the proclamation in which he sought to heal as quickly as possible the scars of this civil war: “The republic should regard itself as one family; the old demarcations of districts must be so obliterated as to render sectional ambitions impossible”. In the reorganization of the Constituent Assembly, which was summoned to meet in January, 1861, he insisted that the suffrage should not be territorial, but “direct and universal, under the necessary guarantees of intelligence and morality, and the number of representatives should correspond (proportionally) to that of the electors represented”. The Convention, which met on 10 January, elected García Moreno president; he delivered his inaugural address on the 2d of April following. Then began that series of reforms among which were the restitution of the rights of the Church and a radical reconstruction of the fiscal system. In the immediate present he had to deal with the machinations of his old adversary Urbina, who, from his retirement in Peru, kept up incessant intrigues with the opposition at home, and still more with the governments of neighbouring republics. García Moreno soon came to a sensible and honourable understanding with the Peruvian government.
A violation of Ecuadorean territory by New Granada, though it led to a hostile collision in which García Moreno himself took part, had no serious consequences until the Arboledo administration gave place to that of General Mosquera, whose ambition it was to make New Granada the nucleus of a great “Colombian Confederation”, in which Ecuador was to be included. Urbina was not above writing encouraging letters to the New Granadan or Colombian dictator who was scheming against the independence of Ecuador. An invitation to García Moreno to confer with Mosquera elicited a very plain intimation that, so far as the national obliteration of Ecuador was concerned, there was nothing to confer about. But in the meantime the Republic of Ecuador had ratified a concordat with Pope Pius IX (1862), and the discontent of the Regalista party at home with the provisions of that instrument gave Mosquera an excellent pretext for encroaching upon his neighbour’s rights. The Regalistas were, without knowing it, a kind of Erastians, who claimed the appointment to ecclesiastical benefices as an inalienable right of the civil power. The President of Ecuador was charged with “casting Colombia, manacled, at the feet of Rome”; Urbina issued “manifestos” from Peru in the sense of “South America for the South Americans”; while the proclamation of President Mosquera recited, with others which seem to have been introduced merely for the sake of appearances, his three really significant grounds of complaint against García Moreno: that the latter had ratified the concordat; that he maintained a representative of the Holy See at Quito; that he had brought Jesuits into Ecuador. It may be remarked here, in passing, that if Mosquera had added to this catalogue of offences those of insisting upon free primary education for the masses, upon strict auditing of the public accounts, and a considerable bona fide outlay upon roads and other public utilities, his proclamation might have served adequately as the indictment upon which García Moreno was condemned and eventually put to death by those whom Pius IX ironically called “the valiant sectaries”.
Consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart

Mosquera was determined to have war, and all the efforts of the Ecuadorean government were of no avail to prevent it. At the battle of Cuaspud all but two battalions of the forces of Ecuador fled ignominiously. It is a matter for wonder, considering the grounds upon which he had declared war, that Mosquera, in the Peace of Pinsaquí, which followed this victory, should have left the Concordat of 1862, the delegate Apostolic, and the Jesuits just as they were. In March,1863, García Moreno tendered his resignation to the National Assembly, who insisted upon his remaining in office until the expiration of his term. Nevertheless he had to face, during the next two years, repeated seditions and filibustering raids. After sparing the lives of the leaders in one of these movements, though they had by all law and custom incurred the penalty of death, he was severely criticized for ordering the execution of another such when it had become evident that an example was necessary for the peace of the republic. In a naval battle at Jambelí (27 June, 1865) at which García Moreno was personally present, the defeat of the Urbina forces was complete, and tranquillity reigned until the presidential term expired on the 27th of the following August.
In the following year began what may be considered as a connected series of attempts which terminated, nine years later, in the assassination of García Moreno. The dispute between Spain and Peru over the Chinchas Islands had led to a war in which, following García Moreno’s advice, his successor Jeronimo Carrión had cast in the lot of Ecuador with that of the sister republic and its then ally, Chile. The ex-president was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Chile, with a commission to transact business with President Prado of Peru on his way. On his arrival at Lima an attempt was made to assassinate him, but it ended in the death of his assailant. His diplomatic mission resulted excellently for the friendly relations between Ecuador and its neighbours; the sojourn at Santiago also inspired García Moreno with a high admiration for Chile, and he even made up his mind to attempt a change of the Ecuadorean constitution so as to make it more like that of Chile, a project which he carried into effect in the National Convention of 1869. On his return to Ecuador he found himself a second time in the uncongenial position of leader of a revolution. To anticipate a plot which the Liberals, led by one of Urbina’s relations, were known to be forming, the conservatives of Ecuador had risen, declared Carrión deposed, and made García Moreno head of the provisional government. The justice of the grounds on which this extreme action was taken was established by the attempt of Veintemilla, at Guayaquil, only two months later, in March, 1869.
The murder of Garcia Moreno

Having been duly confirmed as president ad interim by the National Convention of May, 1869, García Moreno resumed his work for the enlightenment, as well as the religious well-being, of his people. It was in these last years of his life that he did so much for the teaching of physical sciences in the university by introducing there the German Fathers of the Society of Jesus. The medical schools and hospitals of the capital benefited vastly by his intelligent and zealous efforts. In September, 1870, the troops of Victor Emmanuel occupied Rome; and on 18 January, 1871, García Moreno, alone of all the rulers of the world, addressed a protest to the King of Italy on the spoliation of the Holy See. The pope marked his appreciation of this outburst of loyalty by conferring on the President of Ecuador the decoration of the First Class of the Order of Pius IX, with a Brief of commendation dated, 27 March, 1871. It was, on the other hand, notorious that certain lodges had formally decreed the death of García Moreno, who, in a letter to the pope, used about this time the following almost prophetic words: “What riches for me, Most Holy Father, to be hated and calumniated for my love for our Divine Redeemer! What happiness if your benediction should obtain for me from Heaven the grace of shedding my blood for Him, who being God, was willing to shed His blood for us upon the Cross!” The object of numberless plots against his life, García Moreno pursued his way with unruffled confidence in the future — his own and his country’s. “The enemies of God and the Church can kill me”, he once said, “but God does not die” (Dios no muere).
He had been re-elected president, and would soon have entered upon another term of office, when, towards the end of July, 1875, the police of Quito were apprised that a party of assassins had begun to dog García Moreno’s footsteps. When, however, the chief of police warned the intended victim, the latter so discouraged all attempts to hedge him about with precautions, as to almost excuse the carelessness of his official guardians. It came out in evidence that within the fortnight preceding the finally successful attempt, the same assassins had at least twice been foiled by the president’s failing to appear on occasions when he had been expected. Finally, on the evening of 6 August, the assassins found their prey unprotected, leaving the house of some very dear friends; they followed him until he had reached the Treasury, and there Faustino Rayo, the leader of the band, suddenly attacked him with a machete, inflicting six or seven wounds, while the other three assisted in the work with their revolvers. On hearing of the death of García Moreno, Pope Pius IX ordered a solemn Mass of Requiem to be celebrated in the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. The same sovereign pontiff erected to his memory, in the Collegio Pio-Latino, at Rome, a monument on which García Moreno is designated:
Religionis integerrimus custos Auctor studiorum optimorum Obsequentissimus in Petri sedem Justitiae cultor; scelerum vindex.
The materials for this article have been derived from a biography, now extremely rare, written by a personal friend and political associate of García Moreno, HERRERA, Apuntes sobre la Vida de García Moreno. See also: BERTHES, García Moreno (Paris); Les Contemporains (Paris, s.d.), I; MAXWELL-SCOTT, Gabriel García Moreno, Regenerator of Ecuador in St. Nicholas Series (London and New York, 1908).
E. MACPHERSON (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites