I have placed all my confidence in God, from whose goodness I hope He will grant me to reach not only San Diego to raise the standard of the Holy Cross in that port, but also Monterey. —St. Junipero Serra, 1768, when he was about to begin his missionary work in California.
THE California we see to-day is spiritually a shadow of what it was in its first 52 years. In terms of population, production, infrastructure, even in its current decline, the Golden State remains a colossus. But it was founded by a Saint and a King, and we have little enough resembling that here to-day. But the fact remains that back in the late 1760s, King Carlos III of Spain, who had earlier been successively first Bourbon Duke of Parma and then King of the Two Sicilies, feared the Russian settlement of Alaska. He was afraid that the paladins of Catherine the Great would sweep down on the exposed settlements of Baja California.
King Carlos III was a very contradictory man. He was extremely devout and bade all of his ministers and civil servants swear an oath to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to the death when it was still being debated. He was also the man who secured from the Holy See to allow all priests in his possessions the right to wear blue vestments on the feasts of Our Lady. But he appointed Freemasons to his cabinet, and was a furious enemy of the Jesuits, banishing them from his domains and lending his influence to the ultimate successful campaign to have the order wholly abolished.
This had the unexpected consequence, however of depriving the Church in Ibero-America of a great deal of manpower — there are still parishes in Central Mexico that have not had resident priests since then. For strategic purposes, however, the expulsion of the Jesuits left abandoned their missions in Baja California. The King asked the Franciscans to take over the missions there. They agreed, putting in charge one Fray Junipero Serra, a native of Majorca who had already founded and successfully run a chain of missions in Mexico’s Sierra Gorda mountains.
The now canonized St. Junipero Serra had been a teacher of Llullist philosophy at the university of Majorca. Like his medieval master, Bl. Ramon Llull, he had been driven by the force of the philosophy he taught from the university to the mission fields. Unlike Bl. Ramon, who was martyred by the Muslims he attempted to convert, St. Junipero would die venerated by his charges. But his mission programme was taken from Bl. Ramon’s novel, Blanquerna, about a Pope who completely orients the Church toward the missionary endeavour. Therein, he dwells in detail about how mission communities should be set up. His work is visible in St. Junipero’s accomplishments.
Taking over the Baja Missions in 1768, St. Junipero founded one more in Baja, San Fernando de Velicata. Then, ordered by the King to undertake the founding of Alta California, he set off and founded the first of what by 1823 would be a chain of 21 missions extending from San Diego to what is now Sonoma. Unable to do justice to the Baja Mission, these would be given to the Dominicans in 1781. El Camino Real — the King’s Highway stretched between them. There were four presidios or forts — San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey (the capital of the colony), and San Francisco, and two little chartered towns — with their own parishes: Los Angeles and San Jose. Large areas were granted as ranchos to various retired soldiers and other settlers, and a few of their adobe houses remain. That was all of Spanish California. In 1821, Mexico became independent, and took California with her. Each of the missions had been self-contained communities with fields, mills, vineyards, animals, and all the rest of it. In 1835, the Mexican government secularised the missions, taking everything from the padres except the churches, and giving them to lay trustees for the Indians, who usually kept all the goods while their ostensible native charges had to fend for themselves. In 1846 the Americans conquered California, and 19 years later, Abraham Lincoln restored the churches themselves to the Church. Subsequently, the Church gave two of them to the State of California, who restored them as parks. With that as a background, let us now take our own journey.
We’ll begin with San Diego. It is a major city, and to-day the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. But there are three things that we’ll take in our journey. Near downtown is Old Town San Diego State Park, which has a lot of 19th century buildings. Balboa Park has little to do with the Mission-era, but is worth exploring with its gardens and museums, as is the San Diego Zoo. Presidio Park is the site of the Presidio, of course, but also has the Serra Museum which is really worth it. Of course, there is the Mission itself, which is a basilica, and is the first of the chain.
Driving up the coast, we come to Oceanside, home of Mission San Luis Rey. Inland from Oceanside is the Assistencia or Submission of San Antonio de Pala. Located on the Pala Indian reservation, this one still serves an Indian population — the casino is for tourists.
Further north and inland, we come to San Juan Capistrano, which was one of Fr. Serra’s personal favourites, and still has a chapel he used. It has beautiful gardens, and the ruined great church, destroyed in the earthquake of 1812. The new parish church is a copy of that one, and every March 19, St. Joseph’s day, tourists flock to see the return of the swallows. Nearby is Los Rios Street, the oldest neighbourhood in California.
The next Mission in the chain is San Gabriel Arcangel, in the town of the same name, where the original settlers of Los Angels rested in 1781. The Church was set on fire at the beginning of COVID, but has been completely restored. The Claretian order have held it since 1908, and one of the brothers buried in the garden is a candidate for Sainthood.
We are now in the beating heart of the City of Los Angeles — El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula — “The Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula.” What remains is the Plaza Church, founded by King Fernando VII in 1807. Near it is the Plaza, with its statue of King Carlos III, and quaint Olvera Street. The whole is also a state park. Except for some scattered adobes here and there, this is all of what remains of Spanish Los Angeles.
We drive now into the San Fernando Valley, with its well-earned reputation for suburban boredom. In the midst of it, however, is Mission San Fernando Rey de España. While its church is particularly beautiful, because it doubles as Archdiocesan Archive, its museum is also particularly fine — although all of the missions have good museums.
Our next stop is Mission San Buenaventura, facing the ocean in Ventura, California. From there we drive up the coast — a lovely drive, by the way — to Santa Barbara. In addition to the Mission — which was called the “Queen of the Missions” and is one of the few the Church never lost — there is also the reconstructed Presidio, with a chapel of its own, a reenactment group, and its own statue of King Carlos III. Our road now takes us inland over the San Marcos Pass by the wonderful old stagecoach Inn, the Cold Springs Tavern. We come down out of the hills, and find ourselves in the Santa Ynes Valley. The town itself is still very Hispanic. There is an adjoining Indian Reservation, and in the neighbouring Danish settlement of Solvang, the Mission of Santa Ynez itself.
Finishing there, we find ourselves in the wild and agricultural area around Lompoc, California. The nearby Mission of La Purisima Concepcion, restored by the CCC during the Depression, and now a State Park. With all of its outbuildings, small barracks, and animals, it gives an idea of what they were all like before secularization. In Lompoc itself is the parish of the Immaculate Conception, the canonical successor to the Mission.
From here, we have the longest gap between the missions, as the road leads us through Santa Maria, all the way up to the college town of San Luis Obispo. The Mission survives as a parish church, and sadly is the most wreckovated of them all. Now, from here we might take the coast road, which would lead us through many picturesque coastal towns and the astonishing scenery of Big Sur. But in Spanish times, that was all inaccessible, so our road takes the inland route.
Our first stop is San Miguel Arcangel, now a parish church in the small town of the same name. It is a lovely place. But our next stop takes us off the highway to the Fort Hunter Liggett Military Reservation. We’ll see a Mission style building first that is really a hunting lodge built by William Randolph Hearst, and now a military hotel, and pass it by. At last we come to Mission San Antonio de Asis, which — given its remoteness — also gives us a feeling for what the missions were like. Back on the main highway, we come to Greenfield, and go to Mission Soledad — a very lonely place, indeed, then and now.
From here we can take the Carmel Valley Road into Carmel. Mission Carmel was the headquarters of the Missions, and here we find in addition to the usual Mission things and the most beautiful small garden in California, the shrine of St. Junipero Serra. A little ways north on the same peninsula is Monterey, the royal capital of California. The army post called the Presidio of Monterey has been moved from its original location, currently marked by what was the Royal Presidio Chapel, now the Cathedral of the Diocese of Monterey.
Driving north out of Monterey, we come to the small town of San Juan Bautista. The mission which gives its name to the town is picturesque, as is the plaza — this too is a place where the Spanish atmosphere lingers. We then head back to the coast and hit the very different university town of Santa Cruz. Countercultural, it nevertheless has the parish church of Holy Cross, which in turn has built a small commemorative chapel to represent the now vanished mission.
Heading north to San Jose, we come upon the Peralta adobe, and the ornate cathedral of San Jose. The latter is the descendant of the colonial parish church of San Jose. These are all that remains from colonial days, and the cathedral looks far too grand. From there the road leads on to Santa Clara, where the Jesuits took over the mission, but given its destruction by fire the present building dates only as far back as the 1920s. But it remains to honour the memory of the “Holy Man of Santa Clara.” Further north is Mission San Jose in Fremont, which boasts a relic of the holy nail.
Driving north into San Francisco, we find Mission San Francisco de Asis, in the eponymous Mission district. On the northern end of the city is the Presidio long ago taken over by the US Army, but released by the military about ten years ago. The former officer’s club dates back to 1776. Driving across the Golden Gate bridge we come at last to Marin County. Mission San Raphael, like Santa Cruz, is now a small commemorative chapel built by the local Catholic parish. Driving still further north to Sonoma, we come to the State Park of Mission and Presidio. The Catholic Church in town, St. Francis Solano — is the successor to the Mission. Here at last we have reached the northern end of Spanish California. Less than an hour north on the coast at Jenner is the Fort Ross State Historic Park, whence when they at last arrived, the Russian proved themselves friendly — even to the point of clergy exchanges.
If you can ever take all or part of this tour, you shall find the hidden heart of the State.
Mission Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California. Photo credit: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
