For 39 years, Helen Nelson has stood jealous watch over the San Gabriel Mission, the longest tenure of any preservation activist at the 21 historic Spanish church compounds that run the length of California like a chain of colonial outposts frozen in time.
As Nelson, an unofficial curator, surveys the church, garden and bell wall, she can stroll through 233 years of history, originating when the American Revolution was a contemporary but faraway event on the Atlantic Coast. Founded in 1771, the San Gabriel Mission became “queen” of all the missions, prospering from a fertile valley with abundant water.
The mission, 9 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, appears pretty good for its age, but all’s not well. Upon closer look, Nelson lamented how the convento, built in 1805 as the living quarters for the Spanish padres who settled the American Southwest, has crumbling exterior walls, due to ground moisture. The structure is now a museum.
“It’s scary,” Nelson said, pointing out interior walls that are cracking, too. “What are we going to do? If an earthquake struck, then the walls could be gone.”
In a controversial measure, Congress approved a restoration program this month that would provide $10 million for California’s 21 Spanish missions, 18 of which still hold Roman Catholic worship services–a problem for watchdogs advocating separation of church and state.
The California Missions Preservation Act is awaiting President Bush’s signature, and the state’s congressional delegation expects Bush to sign it.
The funds would be provided over five years to the California Missions Foundation, a non-profit group, only if it raises another $10 million first. The money would refurbish the missions, which are California’s second-most popular tourist attraction, after Disneyland.
Lawmakers say the money would shore up institutions valued more for historic, educational and economic reasons than religious ones. While Catholic in origin, the missions are all state landmarks, and seven are national landmarks, officials said. In fact, every 4th-grader in California must know the 21 missions’ role in history.
“If we lose that legacy, it would be like losing the Alamo in San Antonio or the Old North Church in Boston,” said David Sandretti, a spokesman for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The Alamo was a Catholic Spanish mission in Texas and Old North Church was an Episcopal church that played a role in the American Revolution.
“The money is not going to the church. It’s going to a private foundation and there’s a lot of things in these missions that don’t have anything to do with celebrating mass,” he added.
But critics point out that in addition to all but three of the missions holding Catholic services on a regular basis, restoration funds would be used, according to the bill, for “artwork and artifacts associated with the California missions.”
Opponents said such language translates to Catholic devotional objects. But supporters said the artifacts include valued artwork by American Indians, whom the Spanish Franciscan priests trained to paint church murals and framed canvas 200 years ago.
“We think that churches ought to pay for their repairs rather than look to the taxpayers to do it,” said Joe Conn, spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “We recognize that these are historic buildings, but you certainly don’t scrap the Constitution to do it.”
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The group, which also opposes Bush’s faith-based social services initiative, plans to file a lawsuit if Bush signs the restoration bill, Conn said.
`Bad trend under way’
“There’s a very bad trend under way here asking taxpayers to pay for religion. We think that trend has to stop,” Conn said.
The California Missions Foundation would receive the federal funds and supervise the renovations.
If Bush signs the legislation, the foundation also would assess the repair needs of the missions, a figure that could exceed a 1998 estimate of $50 million, said Knox Mellon, the group’s executive director. The San Miguel Mission, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is in imminent danger of collapsing after an earthquake last year, and its repair cost is at least $25 million, Mellon said.
The San Gabriel Mission needs funds to finish “seismic strengthening,” said Nelson, the longtime preservationist.
The San Gabriel Mission is the only one in California with a church bearing a Moorish appearance. It was inspired by a cathedral in Cordoba, Spain, that had been a mosque. Original features include 14 oil paintings of the stations of the cross made by Indians using sailcloth; a hand-hammered copper baptismal font from Spain, and a communion rail made of local redwood. In addition to the mission’s historic buildings and gardens, there are adjacent modern structures including a grammar school, all-girls high school and chapel.
6,000 buried at site
About 6,000 Gabrielino Indians and Spaniards are buried at the mission site, including the first eight Franciscan padres buried under the altar, said Nelson, who is in her 60s.
“When you walk through this and go through the grounds,” she said as she entered a garden of olive trees and a pergola supporting a grapevine planted in the late 1800s, “you feel a sense of contentment and peace. It shuts out the world.”