St. Junipero Serra: An Unjustly Controversial Figure

The lack of interest in the handwritten letter from the Apostle of California—one of the few remaining in private hands—comes at a difficult time for those who appreciate this great Catholic saint. In 2020, two prominent statues of Serra were toppled, one located in downtown Los Angeles’ Father Serra Park and another in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, both by wild-eyed mobs making the tired claims that he was a symbol of colonialism and oppression. Only days after these atrocities, the City Council of Ventura voted to remove a statue of Serra from its long-standing place in front of City Hall, the city’s specialized art transportation crew snatching the 3,000-pound bronze work in the middle of the night to avoid detection. There were problems before 2020. In 2018, Stanford University removed Serra’s name from a campus dormitory and renamed Serra Mall, a prominent pedestrian and bicycle mall, after the school’s co-founder, Jane Stanford, wife of Gilded Age industrialist and politician Leland. The university claimed Serra’s missions, directed toward the salvation of the souls of the pagan native tribes, had “harmful impacts” that they did not wish to honor.