The Smaller Islands La Palma, La Gomera And El Hierro

THE SMALLER ISLANDS LA PALMA, LA GOMERA AND EL HIERRO With regard to the smaller islands, La Palma, Gomera and El Hierro, the person in charge of the study of the archpriesthood of the former, the doctor and at the same time vicar and provisor of the diocese, limited his report, except for a few slight variations in the boundaries of the parishes, to the proposal of the archpriest of La Palma. Although the island had 15 parishes at that time, it was proposed to create a new and independent one in the payment of Tigalate, belonging to the town of Mazo, to which the territory between the ravine of the same name and the limit that separated that jurisdiction from the town of Fuencaliente was assigned. In this way, the municipality of Mazo would be assigned, half of its inhabitants to the parish of San Blas and the other half to the newly created one, being able to enable until the new parish was built, as such, the hermitage of San Juan de Belmaco, near Tigalate. The fundamental reason for its erection was the great distance from the parish, which made the administration of the sacraments very difficult, making it very dangerous to take the children to be baptized, both in summer and winter, due to the rigor of the climate, as well as the elderly, who were deprived of being able to attend the parish on the days of obligation and during the Easter observance. It was also proposed to create another parish in the area of Tazacorte, within the jurisdiction of Los Llanos, in the hermitage of San Miguel, which had recently undergone numerous reforms. This creation was based both on the number of inhabitants, in 1848, a figure higher than that of the parishes of Breña Baja, Fuencaliente and Puntagorda, and on the distance of six kilometers that existed between this payment and the center of the parish jurisdiction of Los Llanos. It was also proposed the creation of a parish in the Pago de los Francés, belonging to the town of Garafía, to which would be added the parishes of El Tablado and Gallegos, the latter then belonging to the parish of Barlovento. The French were at a distance of 21 kilometers from the parish, with a very difficult road to travel and deep ravines. The annexation of the Gallegos payment to the parish, without causing significant damage to that of Barlovento, was, in the opinion of the archpriest of La Palma, very useful for the faithful, who could easily go to the new parish, since both payments were bordering, while to go to the parish of Barlovento they had to cross a route of approximately 12 kilometers. crisscrossed by the ravines of Topaciegos, Palmita, Fagundo and others, some of them very deep and rugged. With regard to the parish of San Andrés and its annex of Los Sauces, public opinion had been demanding for some time the separation and independence of the latter, given the increase in its population, which already exceeded that of San Andrés by almost double, and the serious inconveniences offered to the parish service, misunderstandings, jealousy and an antagonism existing since ancient times between the faithful of both parishes. further accentuated in 1895 by the growth and material development of the town of Los Sauces. Jealousy and antagonism that led the parishioners to stop hearing Mass, when for some unforeseen reason the parish priest could not celebrate in the church of Our Lady of Montserrat de los Sauces. The archpriest also pointed out other proposals for the annexation of different places to the parish of El Salvador in the capital of La Palma, as well as a coadjutor, while on the other hand the one of Los Llanos and Mazo would be suppressed. As for the archpriesthood of La Gomera, the canon in charge of its study agreed with the archpriest in the proposal to erect a parish aid or auxiliary church in Valle Gran Rey, belonging to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Chipude, given the great distance that separated that payment from the parish of Nuestra Señora de Candelaria de Chipude and the hardness of its road. On the other hand, he did not agree with the archpriest's proposal to erect another one also in the church of the old Dominican convent of the Upper Valley in Hermigua, being in favor of assigning to the parish of the Incarnation of the Valley Under a coadjutor who would be in charge of its care. Finally, in the archdiocese of El Hierro, the dean to whom his study corresponded, proposed to erect two parishes independent of the matrix of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción de Valverde. One of them would be in the auxiliary of El Golfo, while the other would be located in the payment of El Pinar, a place that had 154 neighbors and a hermitage in good condition with all the necessary ornaments for worship. This necessity was justified by the fact that both Bishop Lluch y Garriga and Urquinaona and Bidot, when making the pastoral visit to the island and checking the populations that had the payments of the Mocan, Crece, Isora and El Pinar ordered that a baptismal font be placed in some of them, in order to avoid great inconveniences and spiritual and temporal damages. that the inhabitants of these settlements suffered every time they had to take the children to the mother church of Valverde or to the auxiliary church of El Golfo to baptize them, one as distant as the other.