Destinations Unique, living mission
By TERESA MALCOLM
NCR Staff Pala, Calif.
An exploration of Californias mission churches can be a
contradictory experience. The recreations of Spanish colonial architecture and
the surrounding grounds are both charming and prayerful, and invite the visitor
to stroll through the past. But that past is one marked by tragedy -- the
genocide of a people carried out, however unwittingly, by men of faith.
On Californias coast from San Diego to Sonoma, mission
churches bear witness to the Spanish conquest of Alta California in the late
18th and early 19th centuries. Founded by Spanish Franciscans to convert the
California natives to Christianity and to teach them the ways of European
civilization, today most missions serve as parishes for the local community. A
few are museums only.
But most guidebooks miss or give scant attention to a unique
mission tucked inland near Mount Pauma, the one that claims the closest
connection to its founding purpose. On the Pala Indian Reservation, Mission San
Antonio de Pala has served a Native American population uninterrupted since its
founding in 1816.
Pala Mission is not the biggest, not the largest, its
pastor, Barnabite Fr. Paul Marconi, told NCR. There are very few
tourists in comparison with large places. But its the most alive mission
there is.
Past and present meet in this mission, amid a community that
continues to struggle to regain the identity that was decimated during the
mission period -- all the while coexisting with modern-day U.S. society,
whether represented by proposed plans to build a casino to bring dollars into
the reservation or, currently, by the whites and Hispanics drawn to the parish
of San Antonio de Pala.
The bells of San Antonio de Pala still ring today as a summons to
Mass, to notify people of a death in the community or of an emergency, as well
as for weddings and funerals. The parish serves about 700 Indians, as well as
Mexican and white families, Marconi said. Its territory covers a sparsely
populated area 35 miles long and 20 miles wide. An elementary school -- once
Catholic but now part of the public school district -- is part of the mission
grounds.
Religious customs have been carried on from mission times to the
present day. In the missions museum hangs a photograph of a Corpus
Christi procession from early in the 20th century. Today, the procession is
not exactly like that, Marconi said, indicating the crowd of people
in the photograph, but its just as disorganized.
Involvement in this mission extends beyond parish members. The
Friends of San Antonio de Pala Mission, founded about three years ago, brings
together Catholic and non-Catholic devotees of the mission to raise money for
preservation. Representatives of Palas tribal groups, including the
Luiseño, Cupeño, Pauma and Rincon Indians, join members from the
area surrounding the reservation.
Small and intimate
I cant really describe my attraction to this
place, board member Gordon Krum of the Friends organization told
The San Diego Union-Tribune. Its small and intimate
and personal, and has a feeling that some of the other missions dont
have.
Pala Mission began life as an assistencia -- or annex -- of
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, 20 miles away on the coast. In its most active
period, about 1,300 Indians were attached to the Pala Mission, which was
dedicated to St. Anthony de Padua. Both San Luis Rey and Pala were established
well into the 65-year active period of the missions (1769-1846). The first
mission, San Diego de Alcala, was founded in 1769 by Franciscan Fr. Junipero
Serra, who in the next 15 years established nine more. Serra was beatified by
the Vatican in 1988.
Serras move to Alta California was directed by King Carlos
III, who was concerned about Russian incursions south. Backed by a small number
of soldiers, the Franciscan padres aimed, through conversion and education, to
transform the native population into civilized Christian
Spaniards.
By all accounts, the priests genuinely sought to save the souls of
the natives, whom they saw as children in need of care and direction. But the
story of the missions is one that saw Californias natives decimated by
disease introduced by the white settlers. At the time Mission San Diego de
Alcala was founded, the native population is estimated at 100,000. Within a
decade, the majority had died from diseases such as measles.
Those who survived and joined mission life by conversion to
Christianity were assigned to a quota of labor -- for example, farming on the
missions land holdings, animal husbandry, candle-making, tile
manufacture, weaving -- and in return received sacraments, food, clothing and
education. Converts, called neophytes by the priests, belonged to
the mission, and if they attempted to leave they could be hunted down, brought
back and punished.
The theory of the missions was that the land was held in trust for
the neophytes until they were able to maintain the operation of the mission on
their own. Whether that actually would have happened is an unanswered question.
The upheaval that followed the creation of the Mexican Republic saw the
destruction of the missions. After 1834, the missions were secularized by the
Mexican government, and the church was forced to give up its holdings. Lands
and livestock were sold for a fraction of their worth.
Mission resources lost, the Indians were left homeless. They
lacked the missions as a focal point but had also lost their tribal
structures.
During the mission period, the native population lost quite
a lot, Marconi said. They were forbidden to speak their own
language, were told their own religion was terrible, which its not. They
had a good sense of religion, a sense of rapport with nature. [The Spanish]
tried to take away their culture, force the Indians to become white. Right now
theyre trying to go back, but its kind of late. It may not be
reversible.
Nevertheless, Marconi said he senses no hard feelings toward the
Pala Mission itself. For people born here, the mission has become the
heart and soul of the culture, he said.
The Spanish Franciscans left California in 1846. That same year,
the California Indians were forced from their lands and homes. But a few still
remained in the Pala area, some living in the crumbling ruins of San Antonio de
Pala. Priests still sporadically came to the Pala Mission, allowing the
present-day claim of uninterrupted association with the native people.
In May 1902, Congress established the Pala Reservation. In that
decade, the reservations Indians assisted in the first partial
restoration of the mission compound, led by the Landmarks Club of Southern
California. A more complete restoration was undertaken in the 1950s by Fr. J.M.
Carillo of the Camboni Fathers, the order that led the Pala Mission from
1948-1991. After a brief period under the San Diego diocese, Pala has since
1993 been once again under the direction of the Franciscan order.
Rebuilt in 1950s
Like most California missions, little remains of the original
buildings. Palas chapel has a floor of 1816 vintage. The chapel was
rebuilt in the 1950s with crumbling adobe bricks reformed to make new ones and
cedar beams brought down from Palomar Mountain as the natives had done in 1816.
The wooden crucifix was carved in Michoacan, Mexico, in the 17th century.
The first bell tower was destroyed in a 1916 flood and rebuilt
that same year. Modeled after a campanile in Juarez, Mexico, Palas bell
tower is unique in California in that it is separate from the mission
quadrangle. A cactus grows on top, next to its crowning cross. Visitors can
climb up for a closer look at the bells, but are asked not to attempt to ring
them out of respect for local custom.
The bells overlook a dusty cemetery where the remains of hundreds
of Native American converts and California pioneers rest. Along with newer
headstones, wooden and stone crosses mark graves in various states of ruin.
According to Marconi, its local custom to let the crosses fall where they
may. Its part of nature, he said.
In Southern Californias missions, at least, none of the
museums is particularly polished. But Palas is even less so. The mission
has artifacts collected throughout its history, Marconi said, and we have
to do something with them. We cant throw them away, so we put it in the
museum. The artifacts, sporadically labeled, range from century-old
locally made baskets, 19th-century statues, paintings and photographs from the
missions past, and a sizeable rock and mineral collection donated to the
mission by a benefactor.
The museum doesnt have much traffic to enjoy its past
glories, whether ecclesial, cultural or geological. Pala Mission sees a few
cars come through in the summer, but the village never attracts the buses that
bring sightseers to places like its mother mission, San Luis Rey. And that
suits Marconi fine. Tourists mean money, but its different
here, he said. You dont want tourists taking pictures of the
children at the school. You have to respect them.
The Pala Reservation may yet see tourists of a different kind: A
proposal is on the table to build a casino next year. While its not
a solution to poverty, the some 200 to 300 jobs it could create would
offer residents the chance to stay home and work, Marconi said.
For now, though, the reservations visitors are those willing
to wander a little off the customary California mission trail. In its modest,
unpretentious way, San Antonio de Pala offers a thread back to
Californias past more viscerally than its better-known counterparts.
Stroll through the garden filled with shrines and plants the padres imported
from Mexico, walk into the dark adobe chapel with its rough cobblestone floor
and centuries-old crucifix, and you can feel as through you are traveling
through time. But then look at the walls, whose colorful murals were painted by
Indian artists not 10 years ago, and you are reminded of the vital life of the
Native American community that maintains its connection with this mission
today.
To
reach Mission San Antonio de Pala |
Mission San Antonio de Pala is a short
side trip off the customary mission trail that runs up the California coast.
From San Diego, take Interstate 15 north to Highway 76 east. Highway 76 will
take you into the heart of Pala, where signs lead you to the mission. Pala can
also be easily reached from its mother mission, San Luis Rey de Francia, which
is located near the coast on Highway 76. Travel east from San Luis Rey on
Highway 76 to reach Pala. |
Teresa Malcolm is NCRs opinion editor. Her e-mail
address is tmalcolm@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, October 20,
2000
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