Gulp! Swallows Switch Hard to Digest for Some

Down at the Swallows Inn on Friday, everybody was talking about the return of the swallows to Mission San Juan Capistrano.

No, the famed birds of poetry and song have not arrived early. But just when this city will celebrate their return was very much on people’s minds.

The mission said this week it would break a decades-old tradition and move the celebration from St. Joseph’s Day on March 19 to a Saturday, March 16, to better accommodate families.

Many in town find this, well, hard to swallow.

“Everybody is talking about it,” said bartender Willie Largey. “They can’t understand why they’re changing it. It surprised me, and I’m supposed to know what’s going on around here.”

Donald Tryon, who sits as a director on the local Historical Society, said most of the reaction he has heard has been negative since people learned of the change when the mission’s calendar of activities was released Thursday at a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

“This doesn’t say too much about tradition here,” Tryon said.

According to legend, the city’s relationship with the birds dates to the late 1700s, when Father Junipero Serra is said to have welcomed the swallows each spring. The birds’ return to the mission now attracts worldwide media attention.

The mission’s phones have been ringing off the hook. Many complained that switching the date smacked of commercialism beneath the mission’s dignity.

“We didn’t decide to hold this on this date for commercial interests,” said Jerry Miller, mission administrator. “We did this so families will have a chance to participate. The decision was made months ago in November.”

The old mission is not supported financially by the Catholic Church, Miller said. Money for renovation and other projects must be raised by the mission, with most coming from visitor fees, he said.

“We’re independent,” Miller said, “and we haven’t gotten a nickel from the town, nothing from the feds or the state. We’re on our own.”

In some cases, however, decisions such as changing pastoral feasts at the mission often go as high as Bishop Norman McFarland’s office at the Roman Catholic Diocese in Orange.

A diocese spokeswoman referred all inquiries to Miller, saying that McFarland was away from the office.

There is precedent for moving such celebrations for pastoral reasons, said Msgr. Jaime Soto of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Orange, which had no role in the mission’s decision to move Swallows Day.

“The church will, for example, move the mass for the Day of the Dead from the actual day to a Saturday when it is more convenient to go to a cemetery,” Soto said.

Many parishes will move the significant feast of their patron from a weekday to a weekend to draw more parishioners.

But no matter how mission authorities defended it, people were still suspicious of the motives.

“Tradition does speak for something and it is a shame we have to change for the purpose of commercialization,” said Carlos Negrete, a local attorney. “I understand they want to bring in more tourists, but what’s the purpose then of a St. Joseph’s celebration?”

The controversy did reach City Hall, but don’t look for officials to interfere.

“City Hall is well aware of it,” said Councilman David Swerdlin, a Catholic who was married at the mission in 1981. “My opinion is if they want to hold the return of the swallows on a weekend when more people can enjoy it, that’s fine.”

“There’s not a right or a wrong opinion,” he added.