St. Junipero Serra: the historical record
Posted: 30 Jun 2020 11:33 AM PDT
Today is the feast of St. Junipero Serra. A day after a mob tore down his statue five blocks from my parish, we prayed at the site in Golden Gate Park. On Saturday we joined the Archbishop of San Francisco as he exorcized the site because what happened on June 19 was not just anti-history. Tearing St. Junipero Serra holding forth a large cross was anti-Christ. Most Americans are not anarchists or anti-Christian, but in our ignorance we are being incited to mob violence and hatred of religion. Part of this is due to the failure of our school systems, both public and parochial, to teach critical thinking.
During our rosary a man loudly claimed that Fr. Serra had killed scores of indigenous women and children. Is that even remotely true? What is the historical record? I recommend this 35 minute podcast on the historical context and life of Junipero Serra:
. This interview explains a curious fact I’ve always wondered about: why are the Spanish presidios (military garrisons) situated far from the missions? In San Francisco, for example, the Presidio is
nine miles from the Mission. The presidios were set up to
protect these first settlements. The answer is that Fr. Serra
wanted to protect the Indians from the soldiers . He exposed his friars and laypeople to violence in favor of the indigenous people, and in fact one of the friars was killed by renegade Indians at San Diego Mission in 1775. If Fr. Serra were the man the mob says he was, he would have demanded swift justice for the brutal murder of his friend, Brother Luis Jayme. In fact, he begged the Spanish government not to punish the killers. He even stipulated that if he or any other friar were killed by Indians, that the government could not retaliate. Far from killing Indians, as the mob claims, Serra offered his life for them. That is the historical record.
Part ll Cont…