Fray Junipero Serra - San Gabriel, California
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 34° 05.790 W 118° 06.435
11S E 397861 N 3773409
This sculpture is located in the Quadrangle courtyard at Mission San Gabriel.
Waymark Code: WMRVWF
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 08/09/2016
Views: 2
The life-sized stone sculpture depicts Junipero Serra standing andwearing his friar's robes. He holds a staff in his right hand and a Bible in his left. It sits atop a stone plinth about 8 feet tall with the following inscription:
"FATHER
JUNIPERO SERRA
ONE HUNDRED
AND FIFTIETH
ANNIVERSARY
SAN GABRIEL
MISSION
1771-1921"
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"Junípero Serra y Ferrer, O.F.M.,... (November 24, 1713 – August 28, 1784) was a Roman Catholic Spanish priest and friar of the Franciscan Order who 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 Alta California in the Province of Las Californias, New Spain.
Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988, in Vatican City. Pope Francis canonised him on September 23, 2015, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., during his first visit to the United States. Because of Serra's recorded acts of piety combined with his missionary efforts, he was granted the posthumous title Apostle of California.
The declaration of Serra as a Catholic saint by the Holy See was controversial with some Native Americans who criticize Serra's treatment of their ancestors and associate him with the suppression of their culture."