The violent alt-left extremism that is now sweeping the Excited States of America, as seen in Charlottesville VA and many other cities, has now extended its terror in another direction. First it was the desecration and destruction of historic statuary and monuments. Now it's religious (read: Catholic) statues that are under attack.
The first victim in this latest fit of iconoclasm was the statue of Fra Junipero Serra at a park across the street from Mission San Fernando, in California. Brother Juniper was a Franciscan missionary who brought the Catholic Faith to the Spaniards and Indians in Alta California. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 25 September 1988, and canonised on 23 September 2015, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, during JP II's first visit to the United States. Because of the Saint's recorded acts of piety combined with his missionary efforts, he was granted the posthumous title "Apostle of California".
Now the barbarians of the left, acting in the name of "indigenous rights", have spray-painted a statue of Saint Serra, covering the face, chest, and hands in red paint. The word "murder" is written in white down the front. An Indian (or Native American -- whatever's PC) boy standing with him as part of the statue has red painted under his eyes and down his front as though he were crying blood. The obligatory swastika, standing for everything the anti-Western, anti-Christian hates -- has also painted on the boy.
Thus the frenzy of destruction of statues honouring heroes of the Confederacy is extended to all statues, paintings, photographs and other reminders of people and events that make liberals, secular humanists and revisionists feel uncomfortable. But really... Fra Junipero Serra is a Catholic Saint, and his statue is a religious icon! There is talk, now, of moving the statue to a museum where it can be "protected" (read: forgotten about), but the damage has been done.
The problem is not so much the removal of a statue to a museum, but rather the question of where the revisionism ends. As President Trump has said, if statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are torn down because they were slave-owners, why not also destroy statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? After the statues, what next? The names of buildings, streets, cities and perhaps even states? (It's already happened in Canada's capital, where the name of Hector Langevin has been taken off the government building which houses the Prime Minister's office, because M Langevin dared to suggest that Indian kids might be better educated in residential schools.) Perhaps Washington DC and Washington state could be renamed to honour... let's see... how about Al Sharpton?
Why stop there? How about reprinting American currency to avoid any association with slavery... or Freemasonry? How about rewriting, or even discarding the Constitution because many of its authors were slaveholders? History is filled with unpleasantness, just like the present. It is important to acknowledge the sins of the past, but it is also important to recognize that some of the same people also contributed great things to the world. Shall we talk only about the sins -- real and imagined -- of these people, or simply write them out of history entirely? Shall we just deface, or totally destroy all things we don't like?
It seems that the world is sinking into a chaos of barbarism like that which followed the Fall of Rome. It was that chaos that led St. Benedict of Nursia to gather books and religious articles into his monastery at Monte Cassino, there to preserve Western culture until the Dark Ages ended. What will it take to make America -- or the blue half of it, at least -- come to its senses? And until it does, who will preserve and protect the physical evidence of what went before?
WORTH WATCHING: Dr. Steve Hurley talks about Confederate statues and cultural Marxism. Just posted on YouTube today. Find out what's really behind the mania.
Readers with long(ish) memories may recall our post headed "Poetic justice in Portsmouth, Virginia" (WWW 13/6/20) in which we told you the sad (NOT!) story of how one of the anti-Black racism (etc etc) protesters tearing down a statue of Robert E. Lee in Portsmouth VA was injured when said statue fell on him. The story ended with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's pledge to get "justice for all the 'protesters'."
The first victim in this latest fit of iconoclasm was the statue of Fra Junipero Serra at a park across the street from Mission San Fernando, in California. Brother Juniper was a Franciscan missionary who brought the Catholic Faith to the Spaniards and Indians in Alta California. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 25 September 1988, and canonised on 23 September 2015, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, during JP II's first visit to the United States. Because of the Saint's recorded acts of piety combined with his missionary efforts, he was granted the posthumous title "Apostle of California".
