63 Facts About Junipero Serra

Junipero Serra y Ferrer was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order.

Junipero Serra later founded a mission in Baja California and the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco, in what was then Spanish-occupied Alta California in the Province of Las Californias, New Spain.

Junipero Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 25 September 1988 in Vatican City.

Amid denunciations from Native American tribes who accused Serra of presiding over a brutal colonial subjugation, Pope Francis canonized Serra on 23 September 2015 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D C, during his first visit to the United States.

The slight and frail Junipero Serra now embarked on his novitiate period, a rigorous year of preparation to become a full member of the Franciscan Order.

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Junipero Serra was given the religious name of Junipero in honor of Brother Juniper, who had been among the first Franciscans and a companion of Francis of Assisi.

Junipero Serra still had seven years to go to become an ordained Catholic priest.

Junipero Serra immersed himself in rigorous studies of logic, metaphysics, cosmology, and theology.

In 1737, Junipero Serra became a priest, and three years later earned an ecclesiastical license to teach philosophy at the Convento de San Francisco.

Junipero Serra received a doctorate in theology from the Lullian College in Palma de Majorca, where he occupied the Duns Scotus chair of philosophy until he joined the missionary College of San Fernando de Mexico in 1749.

Junipero Serra sometimes went home from Palma for brief visits to his parents—now separated—and gave them some financial support.

Junipero Serra's discomfort caused him to stay over at the farm another night, during which he scratched his foot and leg to excess, desperately trying to relieve the itch.

Hobbling into Mexico City, Junipero Serra joined up with his fellow friars at the College of San Fernando de Mexico, a specialized training center and regional headquarters for Franciscan missionaries.

Junipero Serra requested that he do his novitiate year again—despite his academic prestige, and the fact that the college's novices were far younger men.

On his 1752 visit from the Sierra Gorda mission to the college of San Fernando in Mexico City, Junipero Serra joyfully carried a goddess statue presented to him by Christian Pames.

Back in the Sierra Gorda, Junipero Serra faced a conflict between Spanish soldiers, settlers, and mission natives or "Indians".

Junipero Serra pitched in himself, carrying wooden beams and applying mortar between the stones forming the church walls.

Junipero Serra asked that an inquisitor be appointed to preside over the Sierra Gorda.

Junipero Serra wore a sackcloth spiked with bristles, or a coat interwoven with broken pieces of wire, under his gray friar's outer garment.

In one of his sermons in Mexico City, while exhorting his listeners to repent their sins, Junipero Serra took out his chain, bared his shoulders and started whipping himself.

Junipero Serra did not stand alone among Catholic missionaries in displaying self-punishment at the pulpit.

Junipero Serra suggested that the Portola party set off without him; he would follow and meet up with them on the way to Alta California.

Junipero Serra joyously rushed out to welcome twelve Indian, men and boys.

Not wishing to burden his traveling companies, Junipero Serra departed from his usual practice of avoiding medicines: he asked one of the muleteers, Juan Antonio Coronel, if he could prepare a remedy for his foot and leg wound.

Whenever Junipero Serra placed his hands on their heads, they placed theirs on his.

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Junipero Serra's companions rushed to recover them, the only pair of spectacles Junipero Serra possessed.

Junipero Serra learned that two Spanish galleons dispatched from Baja to supply the new missions had arrived at San Diego Bay.

Junipero Serra, clutching a Jesus figurine in one hand and a Mary figurine in the other, prayed to God to save both sides from casualties.

That night Junipero Serra buried Vergerano secretly, concealing his death from the Indians.

Yet Junipero Serra wrote six months later, in a letter to the guardian of the college of San Fernando, that "both our men and theirs sustained wounds"—without mentioning any Indian deaths.

Junipero Serra soon learned enough Spanish for Serra to view him as an envoy to help convert the Kumeyaay.

Junipero Serra urged the boy to persuade some parents to bring their young child to the mission, so that Junipero Serra could administer Catholic baptism to the child by pouring water over his head.

Junipero Serra covered the child with some clothing and asked the corporal of the guard to sponsor the baptism.

The frustrated Junipero Serra never forgot this incident; recounting it years later brought tears to his eyes.

Junipero Serra fervently wrote to the guardian of the college of San Fernando, requesting more missionaries willing to face hardships in Alta California.

Since Junipero Serra planned to establish the mission there while having Crespi establish mission San Buenaventura, the two friars would be living over 200 miles apart.

Junipero Serra's group included friar Crespi, captain Pedro Fages, twelve Spanish volunteers, seven leather-jacketed soldiers, two muleteers, five Baja Christian Indians, and Portola's servant.

Junipero Serra realized from the start that the new mission needed relocation: While the Laws of the Indies required missions to be located near Indian villages, there were no Indian settlements near the newly christened mission by Monterey Bay.

Junipero Serra moved to the area that is Monterey in 1770, and founded Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.

Junipero Serra remained there as "Father Presidente" of the Alta California missions.

In 1771, Junipero Serra relocated the mission to Carmel, which became known as "Mission Carmel" and served as his headquarters.

For nearly two years Junipero Serra refrained, and then Viceroy Majorga gave instructions to the effect that Junipero Serra was within his rights.

Junipero Serra successfully resisted the efforts of Governor Felipe de Neve to bring Enlightenment policies to missionary work, because those policies would have subverted the economic and religious goals of the Franciscans.

Junipero Serra wielded this kind of influence because his missions served economic and political purposes as well as religious ends.

In 1779, Franciscan missionaries under Junipero Serra's direction planted California's first sustained vineyard at Mission San Diego de Alcala.

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Junipero Serra believed that the death of an unconverted heathen was tragic, while the death of a baptized convert was a cause for joy.

Junipero Serra maintained a patriarchal or fatherly attitude towards the Native American population.

Junipero Serra led efforts to protect the natives from abuse under Spanish soldiers.

Bucareli requested Junipero Serra set his grievances in writing, which led to the drafting of the Representacion.

Junipero Serra intervened on the soldiers' behalf, and the two did not get along.

Junipero Serra moved the mission to Carmel due to better lands for farming, due to his conflicts with Fages, and in part to protect the Indian neophytes from the influence of Spanish soldiers.

Junipero Serra didn't get along too well with some of the military people, you know.

Junipero Serra wrote a letter in 1775 to Fernando Rivera y Moncada explicitly instructing the colonial commander to whip and shackle Indigenous men who had escaped from Mission San Carlos:.

Catholic writers maintain that the attacks on Junipero Serra impose modern judgments about the appropriateness of Christian evangelization of non-Christians, and that much of the criticism leveled against Junipero Serra results from ahistorical value judgments and from ideologies that deny the validity of Christianity and Catholicism as a legitimate social and cultural force.

Junipero Serra suffered intensely from his disabled leg and from his chest, yet he would use no remedies.

Junipero Serra is included among the Saints of the United States and Mexico.

Junipero Serra is considered to be the patron saint of California, Hispanic Americans, and religious vocations.

Mission in Carmel, California, containing Junipero Serra's remains has continued as a place of public veneration.

The burial location of Junipero Serra is southeast of the altar and is marked with an inscription in the floor of the sanctuary.

The Huntington Library announcement of its 2013 exhibition on Junipero Serra made it clear that Junipero Serra's treatment of Native Americans would be part of the comprehensive coverage of his legacy.

The statue of Junipero Serra was toppled and splattered with paint, and the cemetery, the mission doors, a fountain, and a crucifix were as well.

In 2018, Spanish producer Pedro Alonso Pablos made an animation, medium-length film dedicated to the life and work of Fray Junipero Serra called The call of Junipero Serra, and although the Catholic Church had no formal role during the process of creating the film, the vision that the film offers coincides with that of the Church.

Mission system's violence against California Native Americans is part of the history and memory of current members of the community, we believe that features named for Junipero Serra, who was the architect and leader of the mission system, are in tension with goal of full inclusion.