The archbishops of Los Angeles and San Francisco have blasted pending California legislation for falsely painting Father Junípero Serra as a monster.
“California lawmakers have passed legislation to replace a statue of St. Junípero Serra at the Capitol in Sacramento with a new monument honoring the state’s native peoples,” note Archbishops José Gomez and Salvatore Cordileone in a September 12 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
“Unfortunately, the legislature has gone further, slandering his name and pushing a false narrative about the mission period in California,” they add.
Assembly Bill 338, which passed both chambers by wide margins and now awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature, declares that it is critical that California address “the devastating impact of the mission period, and Father Serra’s role in that devastation.”
“Enslavement of both adults and children, mutilation, genocide, and assault on women were all part of the mission period initiated and overseen by Father Serra,” the bill states, a contention the archbishops insist is simply untrue.
“The lawmakers behind the bill drew their ideas from a single tendentious book written by journalist Elias Castillo,” they observe, an allegation seemingly corroborated by the text of the bill itself, which cites the work.
President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Joseph Edward Kurtz, Supreme Knight of Knights of Culumbus Carl Anderson and Cardinal Marc Ouellet attend a conference on the canonization of Junipero Serra in light of ‘Ecclesia in America’ on May 2, 2015 at the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City, Vatican. (AP Image)
In July 2020, some 200 demonstrators tore down the statue of Father Junípero Serra on the east side of the state Capitol grounds and the statue has been in storage ever since.
Already in 2017 another Junípero Serra statue standing near the entry to the Old Santa Barbara Mission was beheaded and defaced with red paint, the second such act of vandalism targeting Father Serra that year.
According to the archbishops, Serra was “a humble 18th-century Franciscan priest” who “spent his life serving” the indigenous peoples of California. Pope Francis canonized Serra in a 2015 ceremony during the pontiff’s visit to the United States.
“While there is much to criticize from this period, no serious historian has ever made such outrageous claims about Serra or the mission system, the network of 21 communities that Franciscans established along the California coast to evangelize native people,” they write.
The prelates also add that “history can be complicated and facts matter.”
“Serra was a complex character, but he defended indigenous people’s humanity, decried the abuse of indigenous women, and argued against imposing the death penalty on natives who had burned down a mission and murdered one of his friends,” they write.
In their op-ed, the archbishops propose erecting two statues side by side in the California Capitol, “one celebrating the living heritage of California’s indigenous peoples, another reflecting the faith and leadership of their defender St. Junípero Serra.”
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