Fr. Robert Wright, OMI

Experience:

Parish ministry, Texas – Mexico border with migrants, basic ecclesial communities, youth retreats. Formation director and education ministry for the Oblates. Social justice advocacy.

Interests:

Culture and religion, fundamental theology, U.S. Hispanic Christianity, Catholic history in the Southwest.

Books:

• 2023. Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de los Rios: Traders, Allies, and Migrants on New Spain’s Northern Frontier. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2023.

Articles:

• 2021. “Religious Change along the Mexican Border, 1852-1876.” U.S. Catholic Historian 39, no. 1 (Winter): 23-48.
• 2015. “Apostolic Community on the Texas-Mexico Border,” Oblatio 4, no. 3: 367-387.
• 2013. “The Virgin of San Juan del Valle: Shifting Perceptions in the Borderlands,” Catholic Southwest: A Journal of History and Culture 24: 3-29.
• 2011. “From Hispanic Gateway to Border Byway: The Catholic Church in the Middle Rio Grande District of Coahuila/Texas up to 1884,” Catholic Southwest: A Journal of History and Culture 22: 3-20.
• 2010. “Mexican-Descent Catholics and the U.S. Church, 1880-1910: Moving Beyond Chicano Assumptions,” U.S. Catholic Historian 28, no. 4 (Fall): 73-97.
• 2010. “Latino American Religion: Catholics, Colonial Origins,” in Encyclopedia of Religion in America, ed. Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, vol. 3, 1173-1178. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.

Book Chapters:

• 2019. “El santuario de la Virgen de San Juan del Valle en el contexto del bloqueo, el Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) y la violencia.” In Migración y Religión, edited by Amílcar Carpio Pérez and Yves Bernardo Roger Solis Nicot, 165-191. México: Universidad Iberoamericana.
• 2014. “The Local Church and Clergy among Hispanics at the Presidio del Rio Grande up to 1850,” in San Juan Bautista, Presidio del Rio Grande, by Gloria Cadena and Angel Brown, 5-14. San Antonio: Los Bexareños Genealogical and Historical Society.
• 2013. “Transient Clergy in the Trans-Pecos Area, 1848-1892.” in Big Bend’s Ancient and Modern Past, edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and Robert J. Mallouf, 238-275. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Republication, slightly edited (introducing errors) of 2006 essay in Journal of Big Bend Studies.
• 2013. “Espejo de identidades cambiantes: la devoción a Nuestra Señora de San Juan en un valle fronterizo,” in Experiencia religiosa e identidades en América Latina, edited by Imelda Vega-Centeno, 105-129. San José, Costa Rica: DEI y CEHILA.
• 2010. “Father Refugio de la Garza: Controverted Religious Leader,” in Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas, edited by Jesús F. de la Teja, 76-101. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.