HispanicBusiness

For nearly 20 years, Archbishop Robert Fortune Sanchez was a figure of inspiration for thousands.

As the nation's first Hispanic archbishop, the Socorro native was known for establishing the first Archdiocesan Youth Conference. He instituted the first Native American liturgy at the cathedral in Santa Fe and apologized to American Indians for abuses by the church that went back to the Spanish colonial era. He appointed a commission to preserve New Mexico's historic churches. On Sanchez's watch, the archdiocese built new parishes in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

But despite those accomplishments Sanchez is destined to be remembered mainly for resigning in disgrace for a double-headed sex scandal that shook New Mexico in the early 1990s.

First there were the seemingly endless lawsuits against the archdiocese filed by or on behalf of children who had been sexually abused by priests. Many of these had a common thread -- Sanchez did little or nothing when informed of the allegations against pedophile priests.

And secondly, as revealed by a 60 Minutes episode in March 1992, three women came forth saying that they had had sexual encounters with Sanchez while teenagers in the 1970s. One of the women said that Sanchez had taken her virginity at the age of 19, seducing her by comparing her with religious icons like the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The early years

Sanchez was born in 1934, the son of Julius and Priscilla Sanchez. His father, an engineer and a lawyer, taught him and his two brothers the values of education and public service, Robert Sanchez told The New Mexican in 1974, shortly before he was formally invested as archbishop. He said his father "left all of us with the idea that we were all supposed to give ourselves to some kind of life of service."

The future archbishop entered the Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Santa Fe when he was a junior in high school. Two years later, with the help of then Archbishop Edwin Byrne, Sanchez was assigned to the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he earned degrees in philosophy and theology.

He was ordained as a priest in 1959. The next year, Byrne asked him to teach philosophy and ethics at the new St. Pius High School in Albuquerque. He taught there for eight years.

Admitting to feeling a little burnt out, Sanchez requested to be assigned to a remote parish. He was sent to be pastor in Roy and Mosquero in northeastern New Mexico.

Later he returned to Albuquerque, where he served as pastor at San Felipe de Neri Church. During this time, he also served as an adviser and assistant to Archbishop James Peter Davis and president of the priests' senate.

The new archbishop

On June 4, 1974, the Vatican announced that Sanchez would be the new archbishop to replace Davis, who had announced his retirement.

It's not common that a parish priest rises directly to archbishop. The New Mexican noted at the time that it was "the first time in 25 years that an American has bypassed so many other church offices to head an archdiocese."

Sanchez, who had only recently turned 40, said at the time, "I think that my selection as archbishop was meant to be symbolic. I am a native. I am young and I think it was meant to show people that the church is willing to accept