Jesuit priest Thomas Steele was born in St. Louis, Mo., on Nov. 6, 1933. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1951, and was ordained in 1964. He died on October 25, 2010. Steele taught for 25 years in the English department at Regis University, Colorado, but was best known for his knowledge of santos. Steele discovered his passion for santos when he moved to Albuquerque in 1965 to work on his doctorate in English. When he won a National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities fellowship in 1969, he spent about a third of the stipend purchasing santos. Steele created the Regis University Santos Collection, the largest teaching collection of santos in the United States. He made a major contribution to the field of Spanish Colonial art history of New Mexico through his extensive research and publications on the images of santos and collection of alabados resulting in two comprehensive books, Santos and Saints: The Religious Folk Art of Hispanic New Mexico and The Alabados of New Mexico. He also influenced the artists themselves who often referred to Santos and Saints when working on a carving. Steele selected santos to be given to Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton to mark their 1993 meeting at Regis University. Steele wrote over 40 scholarly articles mostly on literature and cultures of the Hispanic and Native American southwest. Father Steele was a member of the Brotherhood of Penitentes in New Mexico. He studied and collected alabados and other lost liturgical texts.
From the guide to the Thomas J. Steele alabado collection, 1780-2003, (University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research)
