As Catholic churches, sites, and statues are being desecrated across the nation, the Ventura, California, City Council voted to remove the statue of St. Junipero Serra from its city hall.
“In recent weeks, the City of Ventura received thousands of emails, phone calls, and public comments about the Father Junipero Serra statue. Last night, the City Council reached a peaceful resolution to remove and relocate two Serra statues,” Ventura City Manager Alex D. McIntyre said in an announcement.
The bronze statue of the beloved saint will be temporarily placed in storage until it is relocated to Mission San Buenaventura. The wooden statue of St. Junipero Serra inside the city hall will also be moved into storage until it can be relocated to another site.
“We’d like to thank everyone in the community who got involved and came together during this public process. We are glad this historic decision involved so many voices,” said Deputy Mayor Sofia Rubalcava.
The Ventura City Council motioned to remove the statue with a unanimous vote of 6-0. Mayor Matt LaVere recused himself from the public meeting in order to “ensure that the community discussion was conducted free of bias after signing a joint statement in support of safely moving the statue.”
Social justice activists have charged St. Junipero Serra with committing crimes against the Native Americans through the California Mission system. Such allegations motivated rioters in San Francisco and Los Angeles to topple statues honoring the beloved saint. Catholic bishops have unanimously condemned the acts of violence while defending Junipero Serra’s treasured legacy that was anything but racist or oppressive.
As Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez noted:
The real St. Junípero fought a colonial system where natives were regarded as “barbarians” and “savages,” whose only value was to serve the appetites of the white man. For St. Junípero, this colonial ideology was a blasphemy against the God who has “created (all men and women) and redeemed them with the most precious blood of his Son.”
He lived and worked alongside native peoples and spent his whole career defending their humanity and protesting crimes and indignities committed against them. Among the injustices he struggled against, we find heartbreaking passages in his letters where he decries the daily sexual abuse of indigenous women by colonial soldiers.
For St. Junípero, the natives were not just powerless victims of colonial brutality. In his letters, he describes their “gentleness and peaceful dispositions,” he celebrates their creativity and knowledge; he remembers little acts of kindness and generosity, even the sweet sound of their voices as they sang.
As The Daily Wire recently reported, Catholic churches and Catholic statues have been vandalized, defaced, and desecrated in the past several weeks across the country.
“At least four Catholic churches in four states were vandalized over the weekend in a string of attacks that have authorities wondering whether religious icons and statues are next to be targeted by anti-racism and ‘anti-fascist’ protesters,” the report says. “Churches in California, New York, Massachusetts, and Florida were all targeted by vandals, and several historic churches suffered major damage in arson attacks.”
RELATED: ‘Made Heroic Sacrifices’: Bishops Condemn Rioters That Vandalized, Toppled Junipero Serra Statues