Junipero Serra, Father of CA Missions

Carmel Mission
3080 Rio Rd.
carmelmission.org

Here are some details about Junipero Serra's life, and here are some interesting bullet points:

• Born Miguel Jose Serra, the smart kid from a modest Spanish family quickly rose in religious and academic ranks as a teen.
• Was ordained priest in his teens and became a theology professor at age 24
• Got permission to travel to Mexico with other Franciscan missionaries at age 36
• Spent 15 years in Mexico City university administration and outreach to native population
• At age 54 was appointed head of Baja California missions
• At age 56 in 1769 at he went north to found San Diego Mission and 8 additional missions (San Antonio, San Buenaventura, San Carlos, San Francisco de Assisi, San Gabriel, San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Clara) in Alta California
• Was near-starvation, afflicted with scurvy, yet walked and rode hundreds of miles through dangerous terrain with snake bite damaged-leg, all to found missions in what is now California USA.
• Self-inflicted mortifications of the flesh: wore heavy shirts with sharp wires pointed inward, whipped himself to the point of bleeding, and used candle to scar the flesh of his chest.
• Forced native Californians into missions at gunpoint-- frequent conflicts between military and religious authority for Alta California's Indians
• Indian recruits (forced to convert nearly at gunpoint) by law could be whipped, shackled or imprisoned for disobedience, and hunted down if they fled the mission grounds. Indians died in missions usually less than 10 years in captivity.
• Indian population nearly decimated and Serra was partially responsible

Junipero Serra, founder of California missions, was born in Mallorca, Spain in 1713 and was buried at the Carmel Mission in Carmel by the Sea in 1784 at the age of 71. You'll find Serra statues at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, in Sacramento on the State Capitol grounds, and nearly all the 21 missions or mission landmarks, and even in the U.S. Capitol at the National Statuary Hall Collection. Father Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987 as the second of three steps necessary for the Church's bestowal of formal sainthood, and today his name is taught to all 4th grade students in California as part of their history lessons.

What's possibly not taught to youth--Serra was quite intelligent--and willing to experience & inflict pain. Even when he was sick and bitten by a snake, he continued to walk hundreds of miles (so the story goes,) put sharp metal objects in his clothes to cut his own chest, burned himself with hot candles, and ordered beatings and other suffering on imprisoned native Indians drafted into slavery in the newly-founded missions.