Angelus News | August 2-9, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 27

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARIES/CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
A ‘Camino’
in California
The Camino de Santiago in
northern Spain today that follows
the medieval pilgrimage
along the Pyrenees west to a miraculous
site in Santiago de Compostela is
trod by millions, many of faith, many
of no apparent faith.
I say “apparent” because faith is a
curious thing. It can start with awe over
the beauty of nature, and end with awe
at the Creator of it all. In any case, it’s
an opportunity for a spiritual upgrade.
The magic of the Spanish Camino de
Santiago in the Old World could become
part of the California Camino. I
propose a spiritual and history-marking
walkway from Loreto (Baja California)
to Sonoma, or even more appropriately,
from Mexico City to Tepic to La Paz
to Loreto to Sonoma.
This journey on foot would have several
purposes. For those of a spiritual
bent, it would be the cause for meditation,
prayerful hiking, worship of the
Creator, and a Franciscan-like wayfarer’s
trust in strangers on the road.
For those who also respect history, the
Camino in California (or the Californias)
could have mini-exhibits along
the way of treatment in the missions —
pro and con — and of Native American
testimony in every shade.
For environmentalists, they would
have a walk in some of the most
beautiful land and sea and mountain
in the world, and an opportunity to
raise awareness of the threat of global
warming and the erosion and warming
of the seas. Many might be drawn by
all three perspectives.
As my friend and celebrated author
Richard Rodriguez wrote in his book
“Days of Obligation”: “Have I, like the
California Indians, sought some refuge
from a world that can no longer make
sense to me?”
From the nuclear shadows of our
world, from the terrible addiction to
energy that is killing us, from the fear
of the Other, let the Camino give
refuge. And let the mission bells bend
gently over that road.
— Gregory Orfalea
human, with no dignity, who abused
them sexually, and grabbed their land.
But the supreme act of “radical
mercy” occurred after the Kumeyaay
raid on Mission San Diego in 1775
that burned the mission to the ground
and killed three Spaniards, including
a priest friend of Serra’s who was one
of the Kumeyaay’s greatest champions,
Father Luis Jayme.
Despite Jayme’s deeply tragic, nonsensical
murder (he was beaten to death
and skewered by a dozen arrows),
Serra insisted to the viceroy that those
jailed and awaiting execution in San
Diego for the attack be pardoned and
released.
“As to the killer,” Serra appealed to
the highest authority in the Americas,
“let him live so that he can be saved,
for that is the purpose of our coming
here and its sole justification.”
Though there was severe loss of
life due to disease, and disciplinary
measures we do not counsel today, in
contradistinction to intentional murder
and land seizure of the American
government in the 19th century, those
Hispanic mission bells represent the
Gospel of Love. That, to me, is one
California symbol worth saving in the
midst of so many social ills that inflict
so much misery.
The Franciscans were founded, after
all, by one of the great peace-lovers of
all time; if they had forgotten him in
Peru and Mexico and Arizona, they did
not — for the most part — forget St.
Francis in California.
An early San Diego interlude in the
life of Serra always brings to me the essential
benevolence of the Franciscans
in 18th-century California. On the first
exploration, just over the present-day
U.S.-Mexico border in what is today
the Tijuana Estuary Nature Preserve,
the Portola expedition came across
“good sweet water” and the leader proposed
to water the horses, let the men
bathe, wash their clothes, and drink.
Serra would have none of it.
“We do not want to spoil the watering
site for the poor gentiles,” he said,
meaning this was the Indians’ water
and hands off. Does that sound like
genocide?
On the side of the heart
“If we weren’t here, who would have
put the bricks on top of each other?”
Mel Vernon, captain of the Luiseno
tribe, hardly sees mission life uncritically.
But at a book signing for my
Left to right: St. Junípero Serra scholars Steven Hackel, Robert Senkewicz, Rose Marie Beebe, Ruben
Mendoza, and Gregory Orfalea at Serra’s canonization in Washington, D.C., in 2015.
biography of Serra in San Diego, he
took the time to shake my hand and
tell how proud he was to be a part of
the book.
Vernon is one of the many Native
Americans in California who understand
this complex history and come
down on the side of the heart.
Ernestine de Soto, whose mother was
the last Native American speaker of
Chumash, herself a Chumash shaman
and registered nurse, is no shrinking
violet on difficulties in the missions, as
I can personally attest. Yet today she is
not only a devout Catholic, but leads
winter solstice services at Mission Santa
Barbara with a recitation of the “Our
Father” in Chumash.
She also wrote to the Vatican present-
GREGORY ORFALEA
14 • ANGELUS • August 2-9, 2019