By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Two people I know walked the Camino de Santiago this year. The Camino includes centuries-old (and very long) pathways leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain where the remains of the apostle St. James rest.
Our family pilgrimage goals are a bit more modest and—although we do like to walk—involve more planes and automobiles.
For example, we hope to visit all the remaining Trappist monasteries in the United States. More on that pilgrimage later.
We also want to see what’s left of all 21 of the historic Franciscan missions built some 250 years ago in California. Our Salt Lake City home is close enough to the Golden State that we now have visited five missions—roughly 25% of the pilgrimage—including a couple in the last few months.
The name “California” probably comes from a sixteenth century romance novel with a very long title—Las Sergas del muy esforzado caballero Esplandian, hijo del excelente rey Amadis de Gaula (The exploits of the very powerful cavalier Esplandian, son of the excellent king Amadis of Gaul)—written by a Spanish author named Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo.
The novel describes a lovely island near the Garden of Eden—full of gold and ruled by strong and beautiful women—called “California.” Between 1769 and 1823, the Spanish Franciscans built 21 missions in the real version of that Eden, stretching from San Diego to Sonoma.
The Franciscans hoped to introduce Christianity to the Native Americans living in what they called Alta (Upper) California. The Spanish government hoped the missions—often accompanied by a presidio (military fort)—would help solidify their military and colonial place in the New World.
The first mission we visited is the second one established, Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Río Carmelo in Carmel. Started in 1770 by St. Junipero Serra, the lovely stone church that stands today was built in 1797 and is one of the most authentically restored of the historic California missions.
My wife Vicki and I visited in August 2014, to kick off our 25th wedding anniversary trip driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. A year later in 2015, Pope Francis canonized Serra (1713-1784) as a saint.
It was a controversial decision.
Some argued that the priest had directed and approved of the torture and enslavement of native people at the California missions. Most of the missions we’ve visited try to be fairly transparent about this part of their story, and tell about the negative as well as positive impacts of the missions on the locals.
Serra’s defenders note that he protected native peoples from the harsh military leaders and that the missions provided much-needed education and valuable farming skills. Serra’s mission work also gave birth to the modern California we know today—the El Camino Real Highway stretches 600 miles through the whole state and connects the dots of the 21 missions.
We can thank the norovirus that Carmel was our first historic mission visit together. A couple of years earlier, while on a wedding trip to Southern California, we had planned to attend Sunday Mass at Mission San Juan Capistrano.
We reconsidered when the virus leveled us. We made it back to Capistrano a few years later, however, while attending an employment law conference in San Diego.
Serra founded San Juan Capistrano in November 1776, while the American Revolutionary War was raging in the Thirteen Colonies on the other side of what is now the United States. It is the 7th mission built and one of the most interesting to visit, including each March when the migrating swallows arrive.
We attended Sunday Mass in the modern new church, built in 1984, but the preserved historic section of the mission is extensive. It includes ruins from the “Great Stone Church” built in 1797 but destroyed by earthquakes.
The Serra Chapel onsite is California’s oldest church, built shortly after the mission’s founding in 1776 but then used for storage in the 1800s until restored to its original purpose about a century ago. Serra celebrated Mass there.
Serra also founded the very first California mission—in San Diego—which we saw just a few months ago. In case you are wondering, a June Sunday Mass at Mission San Diego de Alcalá can be quite delightful.
The morning we went, seventy-degree temperatures and sunshine soaked the whitewashed adobe building, which was framed by a deep ocean blue sky. The doors and windows were open that day, and a cool gentle breeze caressed us during the entire liturgy.
The San Diego mission was started in 1769. Originally located in the Old Town area, the mission was moved several times and now rests on the side of a hill in what is known as Mission Valley, about 15 minutes from downtown.
The current church building was built in 1813 and restored in 1931. The U.S. Army occupied the site in the mid-1800s but a decree signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 returned the land to the Catholic Church.
Serra did not found the other two missions we now have visited—Mission Santa Clara de Asís and La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz.
Santa Clara was the eighth mission and the first named for a woman, St. Clare of Assisi. First founded by the Franciscans in 1777, it was moved several times due to earthquakes and floods.
The Jesuits eventually assumed control of the fifth mission church building (constructed in 1825 but restored after a 1926 fire) when they founded Santa Clara University in 1851. The mission has a unique Utah connection—Cora Evans is buried in its cemetery.
Evans is a native Utahn and Catholic convert who grew up in Midvale, and my hometown of Ogden, but died in 1957 near Santa Cruz. The Vatican has been considering canonization of the mystic and housewife for roughly the last decade.
Santa Cruz mission was founded in 1791, the 12th of the 21 missions. The original church, built in 1793, does not survive but one of its adobe outbuildings dating to 1824—used as housing for native converts—does.
A California state park shaded by huge redwood trees protects the historic site. Santa Cruz is known as the “hard luck mission” because it often was embroiled in conflict.
In 1812, local residents killed one of the Franciscan mission priests while he slept. During our visit, a ranger at the state park opined, in no uncertain terms, that the Catholic missions inflicted more harm than good on the native residents.
Just up the street, the local diocese has built a scaled down replica of the first mission church in the shadow of the larger (and more modern) Holy Cross parish church. Open for tours, the replica mission chapel also is used for daily mass and special events like weddings.
We’ve learned a lot on our California mission visits, and there always are lots of other beautiful places to visit nearby. But there’s also another special reason I am enjoying the pilgrimage so much.
My mother always used to tell me to make a wish when I visit a new church. I’m not sure it works, but I always do it anyway. Our California mission pilgrimage helps me keep that nostalgic and wonderful wishful thinking alive.
(Photo: San Diego Mission belltower)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be available for Christmas 2026.
