More Catholic persecution as statue of St. Junipero Serra beheaded and vandalized

Few people understand St. Serra's contrabution to saving the Native people of California.

Vandals have targeted another statue of Junipero Serra, out of ignorance for his contribution to the Native American peoples of his day. A statue at the Old Santa Barbara Mission in California was beheaded and coated with dripping red paint.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- A statue of St. Junipero Serra has been vandalized at the Old Mission Santa Barbara in California. St. Junipero Serra is the founder of several California missions.

St. Serra is under attack by historical revisionists who insist that he is responsible for the plight of Native Americans under Spanish, Mexican and later, American rule. However, Native Americans were in decline long before the arrival of St. Serra.

In fact, it was St. Serra who recognized that they were in great danger of extinction as a people, unless they could find a way to assimilate into the dominant culture. He accomplished this by Christianizing thousands of Native Americans, earning him the unofficial title of ‽Apostle of California." St. Serra was also opposed to the abuse of Native American people.

While the missions succeeded in saving Native Americans as a people, they also contributed to the decline of traditional Native American culture.  However, the alternative was to allow annihilation from encroaching Europeans. By Christianizing the Native people, St. Serra and others were able to prevent European settlers from wiping out their entire populations.

The methods employed by the missions were not unique or unusual for the time, and on occasion, they involved coercion. However, such practices were consistent for the time, and the same treatment was used on Europeans as Native Americans.

It is a fact that the genocide of the Native Americans in California would have been much worse if not for their conversion and assimilation. We don't have to like this fact, but we cannot change it.

It is impossible to tell whether the vandals are aware of these facts and they don't care, or if they are ignorant of them. In either case, they see fit to judge St. Serra, an eighteenth-century figure, by modern day standards.

Unfortunately, they have helped no Native Americans and they have not punished any evil, real or perceived. All they have done is vandalize a statue.

The mission has removed the statue. It will be required to pray for repair or removal of the statue using funds it could have used helping and educating people.

Several St. Serra statues have been attacked and vandalized across California, although the statue at the Old Mission Santa Barbara is the first one to be beheaded.