Another statue of Father Serra is vandalized
Controversial friar’s hands are painted red in a park near Mission San Fernando.
Soon after Pope Francis elevated Father Junipero Serra to sainthood two years ago, the statues and California missions that honor his memory became targets of vandalism.
It happened again last last week when one or more vandals targeted a statue in a park across the street from Mission San Fernando, painting Serra’s hands red and scrawling “murderer” on the monument. Photos of the vandalism were posted on Facebook.
“Everyone’s entitled to their own public opinions and thoughts,” Cristian Mendoza, a visitor to the park, told CBS News. “But once it gets to this level, I don’t think it’s right.”
Calls and emails to the archdiocese requesting comment were not returned Sunday. But the defacement of the statue has since been cleaned up.
Serra, a Franciscan friar who founded nine missions from San Diego to San Francisco, was credited for bringing Catholicism to California when it was under Spanish rule. Twelve other missions were erected after his death in 1784.
But to many Native Americans and others, Serra is a symbol of the mission system’s oppression. Converted natives were kept separate from those who had not embraced Christianity, and some missions flogged and imprisoned those who tried to leave.
Pope Francis and other supporters say Serra was a defender of Native Americans and reshaped the culture of the West.
Serra “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it,” Francis said during Serra’s canonization ceremony in 2015.
Two years ago, days after Serra was elevated to sainthood, vandals struck Mission Carmel, where the remains of the controversial missionary are buried, toppling statues and damaging gravesites.
They splashed paint throughout the cemetery and basilica and scrawled “Saint of Genocide” on a headstone.
In November 2015, in another attack on a historical religious site connected to Serra on the Central Coast, vandals splashed red paint on the front door of Mission Santa Cruz.