Mission 2000 Database

Notes: Tall, fair-skinned, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a long face, Padre Prado was one of the several missionaries ill-suited for the missions. He committed himself to the Franciscan novitiate at La Cabrera, thirty miles north of Madrid, on 1 March 1782. He volunteered for the overseas missions in 1789. He had been at Tumacácori only one week on 30 May 1797 when he knew he had made a mistake and wrote to the Father Guardian at the College of Querétaro, "My Dear Father Guardian, I am not for the missions. I know it because God in His infinite judgment seems each day to be withdrawing farther from me because of my sins. I am going out of my mind with so much confusion, and if I do not return at once to the college they will soon have on their hands another [Esteban de] Salazar ( one of the original fifteen Querétaran friars in Sonora, whose experience in the missions caused him to consider suicide). Unless God remedies the situation. I therefore beg you for the love of God to send me a pass for the college. God will reward you, and it will be a great favor to the missions where they might station me." He also described the dire state of the mission. Father President Iturralde made him responsible for Tubac, further troubling Padre Prado. The Indian women who hung around the Presidio scared him and he was bothered by the fact that some of the padres were actually accepting 10 peso fees to perform marriages. He could not reconcile this with his vows of poverty. He was still at Tumacácori on 30 September 1797. He and Padre Bordoy had seen to patching up the little Jesuit church. Padre Prado departed for the College of Querétaro sometime around January 1798. Back at the College he was elected Father Guardian three times before he died.