#junipero serra

US 1985 44¢ Junipero Serra and Mission San Gabriel

my first ever reliquary~

MISSION SAN CARLOS BORROMEO DEL RIO CARMELO, CARMEL, CALIFORNIA, USA (December 25, 2022) Christmas this year found me at the mouth of the Carmel Valley, in one of the most authentically restored Catholic mission churches in California. Founded in 1770 by Spanish Franciscan priest, explorer and colonist, Saint Junípero Serra, the mission is named for Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, Italy, and was the site of the first Christian confirmation in Alta California. I was here maybe in the late 2000s with my niece Selene, but because we had arrived at dusk, the basilica was no longer open and we had time only for snaps at the courtyard. This year though, I was happy to have attended Christmas Mass with my sister Monique and her two sons Chris and Gab. There is much to see here--the spacious courtyard with its inviting fountain and a statue of the beloved saint; the basilica itself, its dissimilar bell towers, and its magnificent retablo; the museum, sanctuary, and cenotaph. I ought to come back.

1/28/21

Was finally able to scan the print version of the Union-Tribune column by Charles T. Clark.

To state it bluntly, Junípero Serra is being used as a convenient scapegoat and whipping boy for certain abuses inherent to eighteenth-century Spanish colonialism. Were such abuses real? Of course. But was Fr. Serra personally responsible for them? Of course not. I won’t deny for a moment that Serra probably engaged in certain disciplinary practices that we would rightfully regard as morally questionable, but the overwhelming evidence suggests that he was a great friend to the native peoples; that he sought, time and again, to protect them from mistreatment by civil authorities; and that he presided over missions where the indigenous were taught useful skills and were introduced to the Christian faith. To suggest, as did some of those who were petitioning for the removal of his statue, that Serra was the moral equivalent of Hitler and his missions the moral equivalent of concentration camps is nothing short of defamatory.

SIEMPRE