Serra Statue: Mission Accomplished

‘We do not want to just admire him, put him on a pedestal. . . . We want to catch some of his fire.’

--Father Geoffrey Bridges

Until this weekend, the only statue at Mission San Juan Capistrano of the mission’s founder, Junipero Serra, was outside the church.

But in ceremonies Sunday at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II beatified the controversial 18th-Century Franciscan missionary.

Now, Father Serra can come in from the cold.

In anticipation of the beatification--the second of three steps toward sainthood--an 8-foot statue of the priest was relocated Saturday from a food bank storage area where it had stood for a year to the interior of the church, where it was blessed by visiting Franciscan priests. Believers began to pray to Serra to intercede with God for them and were encouraged to emulate his zeal as an evangelist. Prayers in honor of Serra were posted in English and Spanish.

A special Mass Saturday night drew about 300 people, including a dozen members of the Serra Club, an international organization encouraging young people to enter religious life. Traveling in a 34-foot motor home, members from Palm Springs and Riverside brought their own chaplain to celebrate the Mass in the mission’s Serra Chapel.

On Sunday, Rose Foster, 79, of San Juan Capistrano was one of hundreds of parishioners attending morning Mass in the oversize replica of the original mission church next to the mission. She said she prayed to Serra. “I asked him to pray for us. I thanked him for all the joy he’s given to so many people. I think it’s marvelous that he was beatified.”

“I believe he’s a messenger for Jesus,” said her grandson Mitch Colapinto, 21, also of San Juan Capistrano.

The statue installed in the church Saturday night depicts a thin, youthful Serra holding a cross. It was fashioned by Spanish sculptor Juan de Avalos and commissioned by winery heiress Mara Domecq of Spain, said Father Paul Martin, Serra’s 34th direct successor as pastor of Mission San Juan Capistrano.

About three years ago, Domecq retraced Serra’s trek in reverse on a white

horse and was impressed that descendants of the original mission Indians still lived in San Juan Capistrano.

The statue, too large for its intended niche in the main church, will be moved Monday into the Serra Chapel within the mission.

It is so handsome, “everybody’s fallen in love with the statue,” Martin said.

The brown-robed Franciscan, Martin said, is leaning forward, illustrating his motto: “Always Go Forward--Never Turn Back.”

Serra was a theology professor who volunteered for missionary work in Mexico in 1768. The next year, after receiving Spain’s authorization to colonize California, he founded the first nine of California’s 21 missions, confirming the baptisms of about 6,000 Indians. Mission San Juan Capistrano was the seventh in the chain, founded in 1776. Its Serra Chapel is considered the oldest structure in California.

Statues of Serra commemorating his role in history appear in Washington and Sacramento. Numerous state parks and roads are named after him.

Father Geoffrey Bridges, spiritual leader to secular Franciscans, encouraged the faithful Saturday to emulate Serra as a model of evangelism.

“We do not want to just admire him, put him on a pedestal and forget about him,” he said. “We want to catch some of his fire to make Jesus known. The best way to honor Junipero Serra is to imitate his response to Jesus when he said, ‘Come follow me; come be an evangelizer.’ ”

Grounds for Serra’s proposed sainthood, under study since 1934 by Vatican researchers, include the so-called miraculous recovery of a St. Louis nun who prayed to Serra and was cured of a severe case of lupus erythematosus 28 years ago.

But Serra’s critics--including descendants of California’s original coastal Indians--argue that Serra was no saint. They say the system he founded took advantage of the Indians, luring them into missions where they succumbed to European diseases such as smallpox and syphilis, and using them as forced labor. Ultimately, the Indians’ civilization was crushed.

“He was really a brutal man. But you look at what he’s done . . . the spreading of Christianity,” Agee Kading of Capistrano Beach said after Mass on Sunday. “I don’t know that much about it.”

“I think it’s just a lot of rumors--we are not to judge,” said Mimi Day, another parishioner. “God is the judge. Only God knows what he did.”

“I don’t know what kind of person he was,” said Ernest Salgado of Laguna Niguel. “He’s done a lot for the Catholic Church in California, obviously. Whether or not he deserves to become a saint, the Vatican has to decide that.”

“I believe we need to say to the Indians, ‘You have a point,’ ” Bridges said. “To a large extent, we took away your culture and squelched your religion. The mistake they make is they expect Serra to have a 20th-Century consciousness.

“Serra felt if he didn’t convert all these Indians, they wouldn’t go to heaven. Now we don’t try and convert that person if that person is settled in a religion already.”

It is unknown when, or if, Serra will be canonized, Martin said. He added that he has no personal opinion about whether that should happen.

“I think what the church thinks,” Martin said.