Another statue of St. Junipero Serra vandalized
A statue of St. Junipero Serra at the Old
Santa Barbara Mission in California has been decapitated and splashed
with red paint. The bronze statue was vandalized overnight between
Sunday and Monday.
An 18th century Spanish Franciscan, Serra
is remembered in Catholic circles as the missionary who brought the
faith to the West Coast of the Americas, having founded nine missions
himself from San Francisco to San Diego, and he inspired the creation of
twelve others after his death in 1784. He’s formally known as the
“Apostle of California.”
It is estimated that during his ministry, Serra baptized about 6,000 native people.
When Francis made Serra a saint, he
said Serra “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to
protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it.”
Critics, however, associate Serra with
human rights violations and the destruction of native cultures, among
other things charging that natives at his missions who refused to
embrace Christianity were often mistreated, including imprisoning them
to prevent them from leaving.
It is the latest vandalization of of a
Serra monument over the past few years. In 2015 – shortly before Serra
was canonized – the Carmel Mission was attacked, leaving several statues
toppled to the ground and a headstone vandalized with the painted words
‘Saint of Genocide.’
In 2016, the front door of the Santa Cruz
Mission was splashed with red paint. In August of this year, a statue
at the San Fernando Mission was painted red, and the word ‘Murder’ was
written on it in white.
Santa Barbara police are investigating
the latest act of vandalism, working with police departments involved in
the other incidents.
The vandalized statue of Serra has been
removed from its location on the mission grounds, but Monica Orozco –
the mission’s executive director – told local media she did not know if
the statue would be repaired or replaced.
