Angelus News | July 31-August 7, 2020 | Vol. 5 No. 21

COLTON MACHADO/ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES
When Father Tom Elewaut
saw the name on his phone’s
caller ID the night of
June 30, the pastor of Mission San
Buenaventura guessed the call had
something to do with the recent controversy
over whether to remove the
statue of St. Junípero Serra in front of
Ventura’s City Hall.
He guessed wrong.
“I’ve got some good news,”
said Archbishop José H. Gomez
on the other end of the line.
“You’re a minor basilica.”
Father Elewaut’s voice started
to crack with emotion. He’d
spent the last six years researching,
praying, and waiting for
Pope Francis to decide whether
to elevate his 238-year-old parish
to the rank of “minor basilica.”
Two weeks later, on July 15, the
feast of the mission’s namesake,
St. Bonaventure, the pope’s
decision was made public. At a
special 7:30 a.m. Mass celebrated
by Archbishop Gomez,
along with Father Elewaut and
regional Auxiliary Bishop Robert
Barron, Mission Basilica San
Buenaventura was unveiled as
the first basilica in the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles and the 88th
in the United States.
“When the pope designates
a basilica, it means this is holy
ground, that something beautiful
and important in the history
of salvation happened here,”
Archbishop Gomez said at the
Mass, held outside in the mission’s
garden due to restrictions
on outdoor religious services
mandated by Gov. Gavin
Newsom just two days earlier in
light of the recent spike in coronavirus
(COVID-19) cases in the state.
Of the nine missions St. Junípero
founded in what is today California,
Mission San Buenaventura has the
distinction of being his last.
St. Junípero had planned to establish
San Buenaventura as the third mission
in Alta California, but was forced to
wait more than a decade before receiving
approval.
When the mission was eventually
founded, on Easter Sunday, March
31, 1782, St. Junípero alluded to the
fact that it took the Church more than
200 years after Bonaventure’s death to
declare him a saint.
“Today [God] has been kind enough
to grant me the consolation, after
many years of longing, of witnessing
the founding of the Holy Mission of
Msgr. Francis J. Weber speaks at the solemn consecration of
Mission San Buenaventura on Dec. 19, 1976.
Our Seraphic Doctor San Buenaventura,”
he said.
“And the same thing can be said of
this founding as the canonization of
the saint: ‘Quo tardius, eo solemnius’
[‘The more slowly, the more solemnly’].”
In other words, the longer delayed,
the sweeter the celebration.
And in many ways, this expression
could also characterize the nearly
45 years it took for St. Bonaventure’s
mission to be named a basilica.
MISSION SAN BUENAVENTURA
BUMPY ROAD TO 'BASILICA'
The first attempt to get Rome to recognize
San Buenaventura as a basilica
ended in failure. And the second one
almost did, too.
The pursuit began in 1976, when the
Vatican gave the archbishop of Los
Angeles at the time, Cardinal Timothy
Manning, approval to solemnly
consecrate the mission’s
167-year-old church building.
Then-pastor Msgr. Francis
J. Weber, one of the eminent
historians of the Church in California
and the United States,
suggested that the mission seek a
further honor from Rome.
St. Pope Paul VI had just granted
minor basilica designation
to Mission San Diego of Alcalá,
the first mission St. Junípero
established in 1769. Msgr.
Weber felt it only fitting that St.
Junípero’s last mission enjoy that
same status.
But soon after Cardinal Manning
submitted the three-page
application, it came back from
Rome denied. Despite Msgr.
Weber’s request that he make
a second attempt, Cardinal
Manning decided not to push
the issue any further.
The idea of making San
Buenaventura a basilica was not
given serious thought again until
2011, when Father Elewaut
arrived as the mission’s new pastor.
He started going through the
parish records and came across
Msgr. Weber’s original application,
along with the rejection
letter from Rome.
“I thought, ‘I wonder if we
would have the opportunity
to reopen a new request?’ ” Father
Elewaut recalled.
The new pastor approached Archbishop
Gomez and, after some
consultation, in 2014 he gave Father
Elewaut the green light to start the
process anew.
As befitting a former high school
principal, Father Elewaut spent the
next four years studying and researching,
building his case for the mission’s
pastoral and historical importance.
One of Father Elewaut’s main chal-
July 31-August 7, 2020 • ANGELUS • 21