Junipero Serra statue vandalized at California mission - November 4 2017

This was the headline that I saw on the Facebook page of the California Mission Walkers.  The statues in Santa Barbara and San Fernando had been vandalized earlier this fall.  Now, it is Mission San Gabriel, when a man with a chain saw tried to saw of the head of the statue in the middle of the night and threw red paint on it before he fled away.  Not even brave enough to take credit for his actions - he has to flee in the darkness of the night.  I guess we are trying to re-write history now.  I guess we are back to persecuting Christians in the middle of the night.  As a teenager growing up in southern California, which was not an easy place to grow up, attending a gang-infested inner city school where being bullied was the norm for me, the Mission in San Juan Capistrano stood out as a beacon of light.  I admire Father Junipero Serra.  No, he was not a perfect human being.  He had his faults and negative attributes.  But he and the Catholic missionaries were instrumental in developing California into the state it is today.  And the Catholic Church under Pope Francis has canonized him as a saint.  I have a dream to hike the mission trail one day in the footsteps of Father Junipero Serra.  I hope to do that one day soon.  Can't we all get along?