EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article is of coverage from Wednesday's services and the video link above is a live stream of Thursday's Mass of Christian burial from the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. A private interment follows the mass.

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When Lee Moquino's cinnamon-colored hands sprinkled cornmeal on the amber casket, it trickled like raindrops on dry tree leaves.

Moquino, from Santa Clara Pueblo, helped receive former Archbishop Robert Sanchez's body Wednesday morning at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Chanting and thumping a drum, he led the eight pallbearers and the Rev. Adam Lee Ortega y Ortiz, pastor at Santa María de la Paz Catholic Community, to the cathedral's baptismal font, where a large group of clergy escorted the body to the foot of the altar.

Sanchez died Friday afternoon. He suffered from dementia but was never diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, the family said. He was 77.

Sanchez was New Mexico's 10th archbishop, the first Hispanic bishop in the nation and the first native New Mexican to reach such a position.

After two decades as head of New Mexico's largest diocese, Sanchez resigned in 1993 amid allegations of sexual misconduct with three women and charges that he had not done enough to discipline pedophile priests in New Mexico.

But for Sanchez's family and some parish members who were present during Wednesday's service, his legacy and his devotion to the Catholic Church will be cherished forever.

"He was a very likable person," said Ely Torres, 70, who drove from Belen on Wednesday morning. "He talked the same language I did. ... We are from the same culture. It was almost like talking to a cousin."

At the altar, Ortega y Ortiz placed a necklace with a cross adorned with turquoise stones around Sanchez's neck, then a scarlet zucchetto (skullcap) and mitre on his head.

For Catherine Sanchez-Praiswater of Tierra Amarilla, seeing the man she calls Uncle Bob in a coffin was not easy. She remembers Sanchez as an uncle who lectured her when she misbehaved, but who also went with the family on many fishing trips, hikes and skiing adventures. When Sanchez became pastor at a small church in Mosquero, N.M., her family visited him, and she and her four siblings would stay up late, listening to him tell jokes and ghost stories, Sanchez-Praiswater said.

Beverly Wible of Phoenix, Sanchez's first cousin, remembers him as a travieso, a mischievous little boy, a prankster who was always out to get her.

"I was the only girl, so they used to tease the heck out of me," Wible said. When she and Sanchez were about 12 years old, the family took a trip to Taos on a summer day, and Sanchez offered to get her a Coke while she took a bathroom break.

"I took a good drink and he had put Tabasco sauce in the Coke," Wible said, giggling at the memory. Shortly before his death last week, she asked him if he remembered the story, and she said he did.

Carol Johansen, another of Sanchez's nieces, said she remembers him accompanying the family on a ski trip in the Sandia Mountains. "We were very competitive," Johansen said. One of the times when they raced down the mountain, he tried to outsmart her and the rest of the kids, but instead tumbled down the slope.

"We laughed so hard that day," Johansen said.

Then there were the trips to Mexico City together to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Sanchez's connection with Mexico goes beyond his faith and his work. His father, Julius Sanchez, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. The family moved to San Francisco and eventually to Socorro, where they settled in the early 1900s.

Robert Sanchez's middle brother, Rozier Edmond Sanchez, 80, of Albuquerque, remembers his brother as a great basketball and baseball player.

A retired lawyer and former Bernalillo County district judge, he also remembers how proud his mother, Priscilla Fortune Sanchez, was of having a priest for a son.

"She was a very religious person, so to her it was blessing, even though we couldn't see him often," he said.

Her religious beliefs were instilled in all three boys. But from a young age, Robert Sanchez knew he wanted to be a holy man, said his older brother, Julius Edward Sanchez, 81.

Robert Sanchez was barely in the fourth grade when he woke up one Saturday morning and told his mother he wanted to go into the priesthood, Julius Sanchez said. He asked that she tell his father the news.

"It took her two weeks to tell Dad," he recalled. Their father received the news calmly. " 'That's fine. I'll support my children in whatever they want to do,' my father said," Julius Sanchez remembered Wednesday morning as the family sat in the cathedral's rectory.

"Bobby had a vocation ... that Saturday he told my mom he wanted to be a priest. I still remember it. I was laying in the bed across from him. He was so little, his legs didn't even touch the floor," he said.

Julius Sanchez also has fond recollections of the family's trip to Rome in 1959 to see his brother ordained to the priesthood.

"His first Mass was in Latin [and] we were there with him," Julius Sanchez said minutes after viewing his brother's body. "It was amazing."

Contact Sandra Baltazar Martínez at 986-3062 or smartinez@sfnewmexican.com.

FUNERAL SERVICES

Archbishop Robert Fortune Sanchez's funeral is Thursday. A Mass of Christian burial takes place at 10 a.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. A private interment follows the Mass.