Far-left protestors destroy statues of missionary saint in California

Police did nothing, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has yet to issue a public statement.

CALIFORNIA, June 22, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Protestors pulled down and desecrated statues of Catholic missionary St. Junipero Serra in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, after local authorities in Los Angeles approved the removal of another of his statues outside Ventura City Hall.

Serra, a Spanish Franciscan missionary to the United States, helped to found nine missions in California in the late eighteenth century. Pope Francis canonized him in 2015.

Last week the Los Angeles Times reported that Ventura Mayor Matt LaVere, along with representatives from the Barbareño/Venureño Band of Mission Indians and Father Tom Elewaut, a Catholic priest based at the San Buenaventura Mission in Ventura, had issued a joint statement agreeing to take down the statue of Serra outside Ventura City Hall and have it “moved to a more appropriate non-public location.”

In 2013, upon being assigned to that mission, Father Elewaut told parishioners who had been attending the Traditional Latin Mass there for 15 years that he would no longer allow that rite of the Mass and they would need to find another parish.

But on Saturday in Olvera Street, Los Angeles, 100 people reportedly helped to topple a statue of Serra with ropes. In a video of the incident one participant can be heard saying “this is for our ancestors” as the statue came crashing down.

“The demonstration was referred to as an ‘unmonumenting and cleansing of space’ done in partnership with the Tataviam and Tongva Tribal Nations, according to a statement from members of Los Angeles’s Native/Indigenous community,” Los Angeles Daily News reports.

“We had some elders share songs at the start and we collectively built an altar following the removal,” Garcia said.

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