Having entered the seminary of San Andres at age Eleven, Fr. Casimiro Roca, celebrated sixty years as a priest on August 15, 2003. An avid and stance suporter of his principles, Fr. Casimiro Roca has accomplished much in his 85 years. Born in Mura, Spain on July 24,1918. He was only eighteen years old when he participated in Spain’s Civil War in 1936 under Francisco Franco. Later he served in a military hospital carring for the wounded. Picking up where Civil War has interrupted, his studies in 1936, he continued at El Santuario Della Madonna del Carmen at Chieti, Italy. it was there he took his vows on August 15,1943, celebrating his first Mass on September 5, and remaining in Italy until 1945. After this he became a

teacher to seminarians in Spain, returning to Rome in 1949, then again to Spain in 1950. At age 33, Fr. Roca came to America, assigned to parishes in California, Colorado and finally to Santa Cruz, New Mexico. In 1955, Archibishop Byrne assigned him the task of beginning a new parish in Chimayo. The only standing Church building there was the Santuario de Chimayo with its surrounding “capillitas” (small village chapels). With deep faith and the help of his new parishioners, Fr. Roca built a Church in Truchas, Holy Rosary, then a parish hall in Chimayo which doubled as a Church until a beautiful new Church, Holy Family was completed in 1967.

In 1968, Fr. Roca celebrated his silver anniversary as priest in Spain, sometime after which he was assigned to Greely, Colorado, returning to Chimayo in 1877. He spent three years in Albuquerque’s St. Therese before returning to Chimayo again in 1984, where he has remained. Written in his memoirs, retired and still serves the people of Chimayo and its tourists in Santuario. The little priest, as he is affectionately called by many, has accomplished big things and has the spiritual welfare of the people of this Northern New Mexico village engraved in his heart.