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Statue of St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park. Credit: scupperssf/wikimedia. BY CC 2.0
June 20, 2020
Catholic News Agency
After the toppling of a statue of St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said that important protests over racial injustice have been “hijacked” by some bent on violence.
“What is happening to our society? A renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism,” Archbishop Cordileone said in a statement June 20.
The archbishop’s statement came after a group of about 100 people pulled down Serra's statue in Golden Gate Park, along with statues of "Star-Spangled Banner" composer Francis Scott Key and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, who defeated the Confederacy in the conflict and was later elected president.
The vandalism June 19 took place on Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Earlier in the day, a labor-led protest drew thousands in Oakland and shut down ports on the West Coast.
In Los Angeles on June 20, protesters removed a statue of Serra in Placita Olvera downtown. "Natives just tore down the statue of Junipero Serra at Placita Olvera in solidarity with #BLMprotest #antiracism #antislavery," the website LA Taco tweeted, showing images of people defacing the toppled statue with red paint and what it said were native children sitting on the statue.
A screenshot from a video showing vandals removing the statue of St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on June 19, 2020. (Catholic San Francisco)
The :Los Angeles Times said the peaceful action was the work of a group of artists and activiists arguing that "all sides of the history need to be told." The protesters gave a blessing before taking down the statue and later placed fruits and flowers on the downed figured and its base, the newspaper said.
In contrast, on June 18 the city of Ventura announced a joint agreement with the city, the Chumash tribe and Mission San Buenaventura to remove a statue of Serra from near City Hall and place it in a non-public location pending community discussion on a permanent solution.
A painting of Blessed Junipero Serra hangs in the Santa Barbara Mission Archives-Library in Santa Barbara. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)
“We have listened and we have heard the calls from those in the community and believe the time has come for the statue to be taken down and moved to a more appropriate non-public location,” representatives of the three organizations said in a letter to Ventura residents. "To honor the cultural heritage of Ventura and its earliest residents is our ultimate goal."
Around the country, protesters pulled down statues of historic figures. While some protests have torn down the statutes of Confederate figures, as part of a call to end systemic racism, other statues have also been torn down from prominent locations, including one of George Washington.
Commenting on the removal of the statue in San Francisco, Archbishop Cordileone said the memorialization of historic figures "merits an honest and fair discussion as to how and to whom such honor should be given. But here, there was no such rational discussion; it was mob rule, a troubling phenomenon that seems to be repeating itself throughout the country.”
In a tweet, the Spanish embassy said, "We deeply regret the destruction of the statue of Saint Junipero Serra in San Francisco today, and would like to offer a reminder of his great efforts in support of indigenous communities."
The Hispanic Council of Madrid, Spain, and Washington. D.C., deplored that "once again we are sadly witnessing the demolition of the statue of another Hispanic figure in the United States, in this case that of Fray Junipero Serra. This Spanish Franciscan, far from being a 'genocide' or a 'racist,' represented the opposite throughout his life."
Cordileone emphasized the importance of calls for racial justice and an end to police brutality, which began after the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
“Everyone who works for justice and equality joins in the outrage of those who have been and continue to be oppressed,” the archbishop said.
“It is especially true that followers of Jesus Christ – Christians – are called to work tirelessly for the dignity of all human beings,” he added, noting that St. Francis of Assisi, for whom San Francisco was named, is “one of history’s most iconic figures of peace and goodwill.”
“For the past 800 years, the various Franciscan orders of brothers, sisters and priests that trace their inspiration back to him have been exemplary of not only serving, but identifying with, the poor and downtrodden and giving them their rightful dignity as children of God,“ Cordileone said. “St. Junipero Serra is no exception.”
Serra, who was canonized a saint by Pope Francis in 2015, was an eighteenth century Franciscan missionary who founded nine Catholic missions in the area that would later become California; many of those missions would go on to become the centers of major California cities.
Serra helped to convert thousands of native Californians to Christianity and taught them new agricultural technologies.
Critics have lambasted Serra as a symbol of European colonialism and have characterized the missions as engaged in the forced labor of Native Americans, sometimes claiming Serra himself was abusive.
But Serra’s defenders say that Serra was actually an advocate for native people and a champion of human rights.
“St. Serra made heroic sacrifices to protect the indigenous people of California from their Spanish conquerors, especially the soldiers. Even with his infirmed leg which caused him such pain, he walked all the way to Mexico City to obtain special faculties of governance from the Viceroy of Spain in order to discipline the military who were abusing the Indians. And then he walked back to California,” Archbishop Cordileone said.
“And lest there be any doubt, we have a physical reminder to this day: everywhere there is a presidio (soldiers’ barracks) associated with a mission in the chain of 21 missions that he founded, the presidio is miles away from the mission itself and the school.”
Cordileone said he did not want to “deny that historical wrongs have occurred, even by people of good will, and healing of memories and reparation is much needed. But just as historical wrongs cannot be righted by keeping them hidden, neither can they be righted by re-writing the history.”
The archbishop praised the saint’s missionary zeal: “St. Junipero Serra also offered them the best thing he had: the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, which he and his fellow Franciscan friars did through education, health care, and training in the agrarian arts.”
“Anger against injustice can be a healthy response when it is that righteous indignation which moves a society forward. But as Christ himself teaches, and St. Francis modeled, love, and not rage, is the only answer,” the archbishop concluded.
Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez said in 2015 that Serra had “deep love for the native peoples he had come to evangelize.”
“In his appeals, he said some truly remarkable things about human dignity, human rights and the mercy of God,” the archbishop added.
In 2017, Gomez praised Serra as an overlooked American founder.
“Remembering St. Junípero and the first missionaries changes how we remember our national story. It reminds us that America’s first beginnings were not political. America’s first beginnings were spiritual,” Gomez said in a 2017 homily.
Pope Francis canonized the Franciscan missionary Pope Francis in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2015.
“Junipero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it,” the pope said in his homily at the Mass of canonization. “Mistreatment and wrongs which today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people.”
“Junipero Serra left his native land and its way of life,” the pope continued. “He was excited about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing their particular customs and ways of life. He learned how to bring to birth and nurture God’s life in the faces of everyone he met; he made them his brothers and sisters.”
In 2018, San Francisco’s city government removed a statue of the saint from a prominent location outside City Hall. A statue of the saint remains displayed in the U.S. Capitol.
Catholic San Francisco contributed.