A friend of mine from high school - who stands pretty far to the right of me politically - sent me an article about a case of statue vandalism, not of a Confederate general but of a Catholic saint.
Apparently, in the two years since the pope elevated Junipero Serra to sainthood, statues of him have been vandalized four times. Why the attacks? Because many Native Americans and others claim that he took part in and supported the destruction of Native American culture in California. It’s important to note that the Roman Catholic Church asserts that he protected Native Americans from those who wanted to harm them.
I have no idea which story is true.
But I can discuss in general two issues this raises.
One, what about those statues? They just won’t go away, huh?
Two, what is the argument against Junipero, and by extension the church?
First the statues. Again. And probably not for the last time. [NOTE: Just to be clear, I am not speaking of art statues. I’m speaking of memorial statues of real individuals, put up to remember them and their “contributions” to the world]. If statues exist to hold up as examples those who have lived exemplary lives, then a saint might not be a bad choice. Personally, I'm not a fan of statues in general - at least not of regular people - because rather than draw our attention to the positive work of the saint, they tend to emphasize, even glorify, the person him or herself.
Another thing about statues in general is that they only allow us to highlight one side of a person. There is no nuance, no gray area. In my unsolicited opinion, the world would be no worse off for not having the things. Do they teach history? No. Do they glorify certain people? Sure they do. And do they sometimes rewrite history, making someone guilty of great evil into, well, a saint? Absolutely. There is a reason, I suspect that the second commandment (depending on how you read it) forbids people from making any “graven image.” There is only one to glorify, and that is God.
Sure, we do make statues - biblical saints, angels, Jesus - we can’t help ourselves, I guess. However, they are not sacred. They’re just pictures in stone. As for vandalism, our church has certainly seen its share of that. In my years here, I’ve seen mausoleums and signs be hit with spray paint. I’ve seen windows smashed. We just clean up and move on.
But what about Junipero himself? Is he worthy of a statue? Of sainthood?
Junipero Serra was a Spanish missionary in the 18th century, mostly in Mexico and what is now California. Not only did he found many missions in the region, but he was the Inquisitor. His missions served as schools as well as churches, and depending on who you listen to, he either protected Indians from the Spanish military or forced conversions, instituted a sort of slave labor, and worked at suppressing their culture.
That’s between the Roman Catholic Church and the Native peoples of the region.
On the more general issue of how the churches treated Native Americans, however, it’s worth noting that we have a bad track record. Not just the Roman Catholics, but all of us. We came to this continent with the rather arrogant assumption that we knew what was best for the poor savages, and we set about stamping out their culture.
Over time, churches began to partner with the government to create schools (not too dissimilar from Padre Serra’s) for Native children. They were forcibly removed from their families, often at gunpoint, and lodged in residential schools often described as similar to concentration camps. Their hair was cut, their personal clothing burned, and they were beaten if they spoke their native language.
Please note, there is nothing “evangelical” about this. None of this served the traditional goals of evangelism. Nowhere in the past were cultures destroyed - least of all when missionaries came to Europe to bring the gospel. Teaching the gospel did not require eliminating language, clothing, or other cultural traditions. No, this was cultural destruction quite separate from faith.
Nevertheless, churches of many denominations (including, alas, my own) administered these schools which eventually became known as Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. In the end, they were recognized for the destructive forces they were and no longer exist. But they hung around more than a hundred years destroying countless lives.
My friend who brought the article to my attention said he was aware of the past harm done to Native Americans but assumed that was all in the past. It would be great if it were.
But it’s not.
Sure, the schools don’t exist any longer, but treaties are still violated. Native Americans are still corralled in reservations which are a shadow of their ancestral lands. They still face governmental abuse when corporations want what they have. Witness the Standing Rock standoff that has now gone to the favor of the corporations. Not only will their drinking water be endangered, but sacred burial grounds will be disrupted.
Considering the pipeline was re-routed to Standing Rock because its first path was deemed to be too close to white communities, we can see that the abuse of Native peoples is still the rule. So while I have no formal opinion about Junipero Serra, I do suspect there is precious little in our dealings with the original inhabitants of this continent worthy of statuary.
If we truly wanted to tell history, we would teach about the schools and the broken treaties in our schools and museums. We would read primary sources of white Americans noting their goals for the people they were replacing. Memorial statues can’t do that - they can only glorify people and institutions. And that, to this Christian, seems a little too close to what God had in mind with the second commandment.
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