Power Line regular Scott Johnson writes about communications PL has received from the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau. Landau is concerned about the toppling in San Francisco of a statue of Fr. Junipero Serra, generally credited as founder of a chain of Spanish missions in what is now California. Landau observes this disrespect is poorly received in both Mexico and Spain.
Father Serra, missions, and missionaries are all controversial in today’s America. Those who bewail the fate of the poor Native Americans, the people we once called “Indians,” despise missionaries as cultural imperialists. I am unclear about what the actual native people involved think, let me explain.
For the last decade or more the other DrC and I have spent several weeks every winter in the Santa Ynez valley. The valley is geographically near Santa Barbara, though inland a long day’s hike.
In that valley is a Chumash reservation and, essentially next door, a still-functioning mission church, Mission Santa Inez, adjacent to the town of Solvang. The valley and mission spell the saint’s name - Inez/Ynez - differently, both are Spanish for Agnes.
In the years-in-total we’ve spent there I’ve seen zero animosity between Chumash and church, I sense it is still the Chumash church though all are welcome. The grounds are serene and the site has perhaps the valley’s most beautiful view, to the east.
The Santa Ynez valley contains two missions, the other a day’s hike to the west near Lompoc is Mission La Purisima Concepcion. The chain of missions existed a long day’s hike apart up coastal CA as far north as Sonoma.
Whatever activists think, the missions still honor Fr. Serra, and their parishioners do as well. Not that BLM and Antifa are sensitive to their views.
For more about California’s missions and the “south coast” region, do a blog search for “CA missions” and four more posts pop up, going back to 2013.
