Santa Clara University was founded in 1851 by the Society of Jesus as Santa Clara College and is California’s oldest operating institution of higher learning. It was established on the grounds of Mission Santa Clara de Asìs, the eighth of the original 21 California missions. The college originally operated as a preparatory school and did not offer courses of collegiate rank until 1853. The institution became known as the University of Santa Clara in 1912, when the schools of engineering and law were added. For 110 years, Santa Clara University was an all-male school. In 1961, women were accepted as undergraduates and Santa Clara University became the first coeducational Catholic university in California. The number of students and faculty tripled over the next decade and the university began the largest building program in school history with eight residence halls, a student union, and an athletic stadium. In the early 1970s, the Board of Trustees voted to limit the size of the undergraduate population, an action that was intended to preserve the character and ensure the quality of the university for generations to come. In 1985, the university adopted Santa Clara University as its official name.

Bibliography Santa Clara University. “About SCU – History.” www.scu.edu/about/history.cfm (Accessed Nov. 23, 2010)

McKevitt, Gerald, S.J. The University of Santa Clara: A History, 1851-1977. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1979.

Magín Catalá, O.F.M. (1761-1830) was born at Montblanc in the Spanish province of Catalonia in 1761. At age 16, he entered the Franciscan monastery in Barcelona and took his vows one year later. He was ordained priest in 1785. Fr. Catalá quickly volunteered to labor in the missions in America. In 1786, he set sail from Cadiz, Spain and eventually arrived in the capital of Mexico, where he joined the College of San Fernando de Mexico, a Franciscan missionary college. Fr. Catalá arrived at Mission Santa Clara in 1794 at the age of thirty-one, seventeen years after the institution’s founding. Fr. Catalá was stationed at Mission Santa Clara for most of his life and was one of the earliest European colonizers of the Santa Clara Valley. He remained at Mission Santa Clara for thirty-six years. Fr. Catalá was intimately involved not only in the development of the Franciscan outpost at Santa Clara, but also in the construction of a church in the pueblo of San José and the establishment of The Alameda, a roadway linking San José and Mission Santa Clara.

Often referred to as the “Holy Man of Santa Clara,” Fr. Catalá’s reputation for sanctity persisted long after his death in 1830. In 1882, Archbishop J.S. Alemany, O.P. began gathering the necessary information to initiate the process of Fr. Catalá’s beatification. The first canonical process took place in Santa Clara in 1884-1885 and relied solely on the oral testimony of witnesses. The Sacred Congregation of Rites found the evidence collected to be promising but requested corroborative testimony. No additional evidence was submitted on Fr. Catalá’s behalf, and the Cause was suspended. In 1908-1909, the Sacred Congregation of Rites reconvened the Cause, instituting the process to determine whether unauthorized public veneration of Fr. Catalá had occurred. As of 2014, his Cause remained open.

Bibliography

Engelhardt, Zephyrin. The Holy Man of Santa Clara: Or, Life, Virtues and Miracles of Fr. Magin Catalá, O.F.M. San Francisco: The James H. Barry Co., 1909. Print.

McKevitt, Gerald, S.J. Letter to Members of the Sourisseau Academy. 8 Dec. 1994. The Magín Catalá, O.F.M. Collection: Accession File.

Skowronek, Russell K, Elizabeth Thompson, Veronica L. Johnson, and Anita Cohen-Williams. Situating Mission Santa Clara De Asis, 1776-1851: Documentary and Material Evidence of Life on the Alta California Frontier: A Timeline. Berkeley, Calif: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2006. Print.

Stern, Aloysius S., Amleto G. Cicognani, and Arthur D. Spearman. Magin Catala, O.F.M.: The Holy Man of Santa Clara. San Francisco, Calif: University of San Francisco, 1956. Print.