Vandalism of Statue of St Junipero Serro - Mission Santa Barbara - September 2017

As a teenager living in Orange County, California, home to the Mission San Juan Capistrano, a historical landmark and one of the missions that had such a huge influence in the development of the state of California, I loved learning about the establishment of the 21 missions across the state and learning about their history.  As I have hiked the pilgrimage walk of St James in Spain on five different occasions, I have a dream of one day walking the pilgrimage route linking the missions together in California. Modern-day pilgrims, many of whom have made the pilgrimage walk of St James in Spain, are spreading the word about the California Mission Walk.  In September 2015, during Pope Francis' visit to the United States, Franciscan priest Father Junipero Serra, the Father of the California Missions, was canonized a saint in the Catholic Church.  His statue represents the state of California in the Capitol rotunda in Washington, DC, along with the statue of Ronald Reagan.  Last month, the statue of Father Serra was vandalized in a public park in front of Mission San Fernando in Los Angeles.  This month, the statue of Father Serra located on private church grounds was vandalized in Santa Barbara.  Our founding fathers and founding mothers had their faults, to be sure.  Many of the saints we look up to in the Catholic Church have their faults as well. So do our sports heroes and politicians and movie stars.  We cannot erase our history.  If we do not remember, if we do not learn from the good and bad, we are going to make the same mistakes.  Like many Catholics, I view the vandalism of a statue of saint on our church grounds to be a hate crime for what was done and something that should not be tolerated in any shape or form.  In the words of Rodney King: "Can't we all get along?"  Why does there have to be such hate, violence, and intolerance - because that is what the vandalism of this statue was all about.  


http://www.keyt.com/news/crime/saint-serra-statue-vandalized-at-the-santa-barbara-old-mission/619319654

Update:  I recently saw an article where the students, administration, and staff of Stanford were demanding that buildings on campus be reexamined to see that the people they were named after were not offensive or controversial.  This came about in direct connect to Father Serra.  The founders of Stanford named buildings and streets after key figures in the history of California.  The articles states:  (In February 2016,) "the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) passed resolutions requesting that the university rename streets and buildings currently bearing the name of Father Junipero Serra out of respect for the indigenous and Native American communities."  In my opinion, a university founded and named after one of the notorious "robber barons" of the late 19th century, meaning that he earned his money, money that founded this university, through ruthless mean of oppression and tyranny.  I think that they should give back the money and campus of Stanford university to help the poor in order for the students and the university to have a clean conscience and to do what is just.