A Catholic group has received a large grant to restore one of the oldest California missions and to provide a place for tourists to examine the state’s religious and cultural history.
In February, Carmel Mission Foundation received a $1,800,000 grant for the Downie Museum and Basilica Forecourt Restoration, which seeks to rejuvenate the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo located in Carmel, about five miles south of Monterey.
The project is scheduled to be completed by the fall in time to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the mission’s establishment….
In the museum, the project will install new electrical, lighting, and fire suppression. It will also augment the museum’s masonry, which needs to be seismically strengthened in accordance with state law to protect the structure from earthquakes….
This building served as Serra’s living quarters and headquarters for the California mission system. It was later used to house the mission’s physicians until it was abandoned during the 1830s….
The above comes from a March 7 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
Good to see they are installing fire suppression. Notre Dame in Paris could have used a similar system.
Yes, the Mission is adobe. But the basic structure and interior is wood.
So visitors can examine the history of racism, colonialism and abuse of indigenous peoples by the missionaries? No thank you.
Then stay away. Problem solved on both sides.
Kris, I encourage you to find out more about Saint Junipero and the missions. “Junipero Serra” by Santa Clara University scholars Robert M. Senkewicz and Rose Marie Beebe would be a good start. Fr. Serra walked from there to Mexico City, with his bad leg, to intervene on behalf of the indigenous people being abused by Spanish soldiers. Visit the mission and look at their weekly schedule. Long before labor unions, the natives living in the missions had a five-and-a-half day work week. That’s pretty progressive for the 18th century. (Industrialized England and Germany, for example, had nothing like that.) The Church thoroughly investigated Fr. Serra’s life and Pope Francis, another defender of indigenous peoples, would not have canonized him had he been the racist abuser that you claim he was. And, if you are a Catholic; baptism, faith, the Eucharist and eternal life are blessings of utmost importance brought here to natives and settlers alike by the Franciscan missionaries. I’ve prayed at Father Serra’s tomb there numerous times and encourage you to try that. Saint Junipero, pray for Kris and all of us.
You’re mischaracterizing the Spanish soldier situation.
How so?
Some Spanish soldiers did abuse some natives. That’s according to the Franciscan missionaries there at the time. That’s why Saint Junipero interceded on their behalf. The history is pretty clear about that.