Feathered Furor : Flap Arises Over Mission’s Decision to Change the Day It Observes Swallows’ Return to Capistrano This Year

Somebody, quick, alert the swallows.

In a break from a centuries-old tradition, Mission San Juan Capistrano will not officially welcome the return of the swallows on St. Joseph’s Day, March 19. Instead, the 219-year-old mission will celebrate Swallows Day early, on March 16, a Saturday, to “allow more families to enjoy the festivities,” said Jerry Miller, the mission’s administrator.

As news of the decision spread, it began to spark an uproar in this historic city, known internationally for the tiny swallows’ migratory return each year from South America.

Some people charged their beloved mission with selling out to commercialism.

“This is crazy. This is the damnedest thing I ever heard of,” said Larry Buchheim, a local rancher, former mayor and a lifelong resident of the Capistrano Valley. “March 19 is St. Joseph’s Day. It’s Swallows Day. That’s part of the history of this town.”

But Miller said mission officials decided that too many families are prevented from attending the festivities, which attract thousands of visitors from around the world, on a weekday.

“This is a people place, and this is the national Year of the Family,” Miller said. “We are trying to do something in the spirit of the times.”

Besides, Miller said, “we have noticed the swallows don’t all arrive between 6 and 9 in the morning on the 19th. They send scouts ahead and arrive within a week or two.”

The old mission is not supported financially by the Roman Catholic Church, Miller added. 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.”

The commemoration of Swallows Day dates to the early days of the mission. As the legend goes, the fathers noticed that the tiny, darting birds’ arrival coincided with the traditional feast of St. Joseph, Miller said.

St. Joseph’s Day quickly became a “bellwether day” marking the return of the swallows; the mission’s bells are rung with the first sighting of the birds on the morning of March 19. But this year, the bells will ring March 16, Miller said.

The traditional Swallows Day Parade, a separate citywide event in its 38th year, will be held at its usual time on the Saturday after St. Joseph’s Day, March 23.

But the break with the St. Joseph’s Day custom has upset people.

“To me, it’s not traditional, it’s not historical, it’s not appropriate,” City Councilman Gil Jones said of changing the date, which he called a commercialization of the event.

Another former mayor, Tony Forster, whose family goes back more than 100 years in San Juan Capistrano and once owned the mission, said he was shocked.

“I’m flabbergasted,” Forster said. “St. Joseph’s Day is on the 19th of March, period. On the 19th of March, I’m going to be checking for swallows, not on the 16th.”

Despite the mission’s independence, some decisions such as changing pastoral feasts there go as high as Bishop Norman McFarland’s office at the Roman Catholic Diocese in Orange. A diocese spokeswoman referred inquiries to Miller, saying that McFarland was away from the office.

There is a precedent for moving such celebrations for pastoral reasons, said Msgr. Jaime Soto of the diocese, 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.