Religion: Padre of the Rains

The priests at California's Santa Clara Mission took care to be quiet last week as they strolled their ancient corridors. Talking amid the palm and olive trees in the garden, their voices were guarded and low. For in one of the mission chambers a venerable, white-haired invalid, with wrinkled, bespectacled eyes and a broad, benignant face, lay on what seemed likely to be his death bed. He was Father Jerome Sixtus Ricard, "The Padre of the Rains," and it seemed that his 80 years could not much longer resist the attacks of an ailing...

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