Provides interviews with members of the San Antonio community who are involved in building, using, and preserving four historic Spanish colonial missions.

More than a million tourists visit religious landmarks in San Antonio, Texas, each year, observing and sometimes participating in religious activities there. The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park--managed by the National Park Service, in cooperation with the Catholic Church--is one of hundreds of religious places in America and around the world where tourists have become a familiar presence. In Blessed with Tourists, Thomas S. Bremer explores the intersection of tourism and commerce with religion in American, using the missions and other San Antonio sites as prime examples. Bremer recounts the history of San Antonio, from its Native American roots to its development as a religious center with the growth of the Spanish colonial missions, to the modern transformation of San Antonio into a tourist destination. Employing both ethnographic and historical approaches, Bremer examines the concepts of place, identity, aesthetics, and commercialization, demonstrating numerous ways that modern market forces affect religious communities. By identifying important connections between religious and touristic practices, Bremer establishes San Antonio as a distinctive source for anyone seeking to understand the interplay between the religious and the secular, the traditional and the modern.

In this updated study, Polly Kaufman discovers that staff are no longer able to fulfill the National Park Service mission without outside support.

Voices from the Journey is a fitting offering for the Catholic HealthAssociation's centennial anniversary. It is the people of Catholichealth care, those engaged in patient and resident care, thosecharged with administration and governance, who so visiblyembody the healing ministry of Jesus and carry the ministry intothe future. Sister Casey's book celebrates the people of Catholichealth care, grounding reflections in both scripture and the day-to-daychallenges of this vital ministry of the Church.

Through sweeping entries, focused biographies, community histories, economic enterprise analysis, and demographic studies, this Encyclopedia presents the tapestry of the West and its population during various periods of migration. Examines the settling of the West and includes coverage of movements of American Indians, African Americans, and the often-forgotten role of women in the West's development.

Music in the California missions was a pluralistic combination of voices and instruments, of liturgy and spectacle, of styles and functions - and even of cultures - in a new blend that was non-existent before the Franciscan friars' arrival in 1769. This book explores aesthetic, stylistic, historical, cultural, theoretical, liturgical, and biographical aspects of this repertoire. It contains a "Catalogue of Mission Manuscripts," 150+ facsimiles, translations of primary documents, and performance-ready music reconstructions.

"An anthology of literature from and about San Antonio, Texas, from its early days to the present, including poetry, fiction, journalism, history, political writings, and drama"--Provided by publisher.