鮑博　創天地-正氣歌

創天地

Pancho Borboa tells of his peculiar career, at age 90, the former Jesuit priest continues to work on large projects.

Ruben Aguilar Valenzuela

June 11, 2013, 8:12 pm

A Mexican painter in China

The new pastoral center in Taipei will have a 12-meter steel and mosaic mural with the theme Jesus and his disciples, which will be made by a 90-year-old artist of Mexican origin, Francisco Borboa Valenzuela, who took about 40 years to complete. he realized that his was painting and married life and not the priesthood.

A LONG, LONG JOURNEY

Francisco Borboa was born in San Juan Bautista, California, in 1923, and grew up in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. In 1948 he embarked to go to China with the Society of Jesus. Five years earlier he had entered the novitiate of San Cayetano, in Santiago Tianguistenco, State of Mexico.

In Beijing he began studying Chinese, but as Mao Tze Tung's guerrillas advanced from the north, the superiors of the order sent the students to Shanghai and from there to Wuhu.

That year they wintered in front of the Yangtze River and when Mao's troops invaded the region, Borboa and his companions were sent to Shanghai again. Days later, the Chinese Communists seized power and founded the People's Socialist Republic of China in 1949.

The Jesuits-in-training left China in 1950. By train, to Tienshin, by ship to Hong Kong, and by ship to Manila, where, as they did not have a visa, the President granted them permission to enter the Philippines.

The students go to the Chabanel Hall, the philosopher of the Society of Jesus installed in what was a concentration camp for the Japanese prisoners of the Second War. Of that alma mater, Borboa recalls that it was a corridor made of boards about 100 meters long and 2 meters wide, on the sides of which were two rows of corrugated and oxidized sheeting.

Upon finishing his studies in philosophy in 1953, Borboa was sent as a professor (a teacher, it is said among the Jesuits) to the Ateneo de Cagayán, in Oro City, north of the island of Mindanao. At the end of the magisterium, he began theology and in 1957 he was ordained a priest.

In 1958, the stage that the Jesuits call the third probation began, in Hiroshima, Japan. In 1960 he was assigned to Taichung, in Taiwan, where he worked in a Jesuit publishing house, Kuang Chi Press.

START THE PATIENCE TEST

In 1962, Francisco (Pancho) Borboa, after 19 years of belonging to the Society of Jesus, decided to leave it and asked the Roman Curia to be dispensed from the priesthood. It was up to the order to accept his departure from religious life, but only Rome could decide the priestly dispensation.

Shortly after, the still Father Borboa, but no longer a Jesuit, traveled from Taiwan to Hong Kong. The twin-propeller plane lands at a rustic airport.

Brother Oualet goes to meet him and with courage, with a jerk, rips off his clergyman's collar. They transfer him to the offices of the Procuratorate of the China Mission and there his manager, Father Germain, sends him to live at the YMCA, but first he asks him: how much money do you need? Borboa replied: I don't know. From Taiwan he has only brought his crucifix, his Breviary and a couple of T-shirts.

At that moment, the Jesuit who had just left the Society of Jesus said that two very nice things happened to him. One is that he meets with the Jesuit Fathers Günter, Austrian, and Parisi, Italian, his professors of theology and philosophy in Manila, who were going to Rome and offering to present his request for a priestly dispensation at the Congregation of Religious, of the Roman Curia. , where they had contacts.

The other beautiful thing is that he could support himself with little jobs (some drawings) and with a monthly check for $ 1 a day that the bishop and superior of the Swiss Betlemite Fathers of the Jua Lien mission sent him from Taiwan. Borboa, by then, was living, in Shatin, across the mountain from Lion Rock, in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

After a year came the reply from Rome: Petitio sine fundamento (Petition without foundation). They leave me where I am, says Barboa.

One fine day, says Pancho, Father Pieraccini, the one in charge of delivering the bishop's check, calls him and says: Monsignor Caprio, internuncio from Taiwan, is passing through Hong Kong, on his trip to Rome, to attend the Second Vatican Council and wants to see you. What he takes advantage of to request, once again, my priestly dispensation. A year later, back from Rome, he brought me the news that my case would be settled very soon.

THE WOMAN WHO BURNED HER SHIPS

Pancho, by then, already had a resident visa in Hong Kong. He decides, then, to write to Ana, whom he had met in Taichung, Taiwan, when she was a teacher at Providence College, to propose to her.

He thought the dispensation from the priesthood was imminent. She - says Pancho - burned the ships like Cortés and flew to Hong Kong on a one-month visa, to marry a resident. Ana stayed at the house of a neighbor awaiting the arrival of her father. But her father did not come, nor did Roma respond, recalls Pancho.

In the third month, Ana received a summons: Either she gets married or she goes back to Taiwan.

So Ana and I went to church and in front of the Blessed Sacrament we promised to get married, but to live as little brothers until my priestly dispensation arrived so that we could get married in the Church. Then they went to court and got married in civil matters.  For the house, next to the train track, we bought some second-hand furniture and we equipped a very cute, but very poor nest. We put curtains and from the same canvas we made covers for the wooden boxes such as sofas and a tablecloth for the rustic table. The house had two little rooms, and Ana slept in one and me in the other.

In those days, the Mexican missionary Miguel Pardinas SJ was passing through Hong Kong, who visited the couple and taught them how to cook fish. They were both tired, says Pancho, of frying chicken wings. On that occasion, Miguel gave Ana a wool sweater, which she later exchanged for two cheaper ones.

In 1966, Father Granelli, says Pancho, called me at his residence at Colegio La Salle, of which he was chaplain, and told me with paper in hand: Your dispensation has arrived by sea and later on he asks me when do you want to get married? . I replied: Tomorrow. So, remember Pancho, Ana and I promised each other eternal love before Father Granelli. She was wearing a mantilla and a little white dress. Everything was in secret and without witnesses.

Later, Pancho and Ana bought a three-bedroom apartment and a garage, which they arranged very nicely, and called it Borboa Inn.

His guest room was busy all the time, because at that time many who had been Pancho's companions began to leave the Society of Jesus, arriving, he says, in their diapers in Hong Kong. We would pick them up at the airport and take them to our little house.

One of them was the great Jesús Domene (Chuy) [...] expert in Chinese, Italian, English, French and Spanish. Later he was Ambassador of Mexico in Korea, Russia, Thailand and Australia.

One day we left Chuy at the apartment and went to Taiwan, to make peace with Ana's family and deliver some little work (drawings). When we got home, Chuy asked us to go down to the garage so we could see our horse, which was an English Mini Cooper, 9th hand, which he bought for us as a gift.

THE ARTIST AND HIS WORK

Pancho establishes, in his already very long artistic career, two very interesting moments. The first places it in 1985, when an exhibition takes place at the Cabañas Cultural Institute in Guadalajara.

At that time, the Director of Museography was Javier Torres Ladrón de Guevara, who had been a Jesuit. Pancho says that when he saw the material he brought from Hong Kong, he set aside three rooms for the exhibition. 70 paintings were presented in Chinese style watercolor and water-ink. When cutting the opening strip, almost all the paintings had their red speck of sold out. The Institute staff had gone ahead to buy the paintings. In the end - recalls Pancho - we sold more than 80 works.

The other big occasion took place at the Cardinal Tien Catholic Hospital exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan. While Ana and Pancho were hanging the work dedicated entirely to Jesus of Nazareth, two very distinguished ladies approached who passed by admiring the work, although much of it was not yet hanging.

At that moment - says Pancho - I see that they address Ana and me, who were having coffee in the hospital corridor, and they tell us point-blank:? We bought everything from them? [??] were fervent Protestants, they had come to visit the mother-in-law of one of them and wanted to build a church dedicated to Jesus.

Pancho's first individual exhibition was of mosaic paintings and it was presented in Hong Kong in 1972. Later he has exhibited in Manila, Taipei (it is where he has exhibited the most), Guadalajara, Mexico City, Bilbao, Madrid, Los Mochis, Santander and Taichung.

Pancho's work also includes vignettes for various printed editions. And in recent years he has done murals. At the end of 2012, he made a large mural at the entrance of the new building of the Taipei Major Seminary; the theme is the Service (Jesus washes Peter's feet) and it is 10 meters high. Right there, on the outside of the building, he made a steel mural that is a stylized cross and the theme of the Eucharistic Jesus, 8 meters high.

At the beginning of 2013, he installed another mural in the seminary made of acrylic painted tile with the theme Fire I have brought to earth and what do I want but to burn (Luke 12:49). At the end of these works, he decided to give away, as a pylon, a 3-meter mural for the seminary's dining room. Pancho, at 90 years old, continues to work intensely. He recently presented the design of the large mural for the Taipei Pastoral Center, the theme of Jesus and his disciples.

Filed in:  ENTERTAINMENT PRINTED ART AND IDEAS LATIN AMERICAN ART ART IDEAS AND PEOPLE

天主教台北總主教座堂的壁畫：祭壇上方的「顯聖容」馬賽克作品由藝術家鮑伯設計，根據《默示錄》第12章「大異兆」景象，描繪一位身披太陽、腳踏月亮、頭戴十二顆星的婦人創作。象徵愛、盼望與關懷。 

輔仁大學醫學院國璽樓

嘉義教區境內，有一間堪稱全台灣最美麗的馬賽克（彩石鑲嵌）教堂－－嘉義市忠孝路聖奧斯定天主堂。

這座聖堂馬賽克（彩石鑲嵌）藝術品的作者是知名的藝術家Mr. Francisco Borboa（在聖堂的彩石上還有三個印有中譯名鮑步雲的磁磚），當時委託其協助興建的是教區的畢耀遠神父。

教堂座落於嘉義市忠孝路和新生地下道的路口，耐斯松屋對面。嘉義市忠孝路515號。

Mr.Francisco Borboa的作品在世界各地教堂藝術中受到尊崇，近年的作品包括香港灣仔聖母聖衣堂的聖所壁畫及苦路都是他的作品。

1962年聖堂落成，曾經是美軍顧問團及眷村的聖堂，也曾經是外籍勞工朋友感受家庭溫暖的聖堂。曾幾何時，因為改建及道路拓寬，破壞了原來的美貌，近年，更曾經成了景仁幼兒"藝術"學園的倉庫（那兩個字很諷刺吧），實在是令人痛心疾首。於前年九月我們開始透過網路活動公開呼籲促請開放，有一千多位網友上網呼應。然而，至今只在此辦過屈指（單手）可數的曇花一現型公開性活動之後又銷聲匿跡。當時所承諾願意重新開放作為牧民福傳用途，仍未能實現。

我想，無論是在此成長的信友，或是興建聖堂的老神父，服務過此聖堂的神父修女，或是藝術家Mr. Francisco Borboa，或是稍稍對藝術建築有點偏好的人士也好，看到我們教會是如此對待一所藝術建築物的，真不知情何以堪啊！

不才小弟如此期許，在教會教長們大肆宣揚口湖老教堂重生的同時，可否回頭看看這藝術建築物聖奧斯定堂呢？只有你們的決策，才可以幫她重生。讓這個聖堂成為一個可以令人駐足欣賞的場所，一個祈禱的場所；別再只是個關著大門的倉庫或閒置的空間！

耶穌撒種圖 - 「上承天糧，下播佳禾」的大壁畫，啟示著每一個曉明人：要本著對蒼天的信賴，接受生命的洗禮，並熱誠的散播愛和智慧的種子。

The Way of the Cross

Unlike the conventional fourteen individually placed Stations of the Cross, the cathedral’s depiction is done over four sections.  The painful story of Calvary carved in iron lines, modern, simple and sorrowful, covers a length of 63 feet of the back walls of the cathedral, facing the congregation.  They are beautifully and skillfully constructed.