Marin Voice: Archbishop responds to Serra statue ‘restorative justice’

The Catholic Church in California has vibrant restorative justice ministries as a more positive approach to crime and punishment. Restorative justice seeks to bring about reconciliation between offender and victim after a criminal conviction. It holds out potential for much healing when conducted honestly and faithfully, but can bring even greater hurt to victims when not.

Such is the case of the desecration of the Junipero Serra statue at St. Raphael church.

The violence occurred on Oct. 12, 2020. A group of vandals arrived with spray paint, ropes, chisels and television cameras – an act of violence that was clearly premeditated. Moreover, the police simply looked on as a possible felony crime was being committed. There is still no accounting for who gave the order to the good officers of the San Rafael Police Department not to intervene to stop a crime.

Typically, attacks against Catholic communities or their symbols do not lead to offenders being charged with hate crimes, but at least the charge of felony vandalism recognized the seriousness of their action. And, because I did not want to see the offenders go to prison and preferred to avoid a trial, when they asked for restorative justice, I suggested that we do it before a trial in the hope of reaching a just resolution in that way.

From the beginning, I made it very clear to the Marin County District Attorney’s Office that, since the victims of this crime are not only the parishioners of St. Raphael parish but all Catholics in the San Francisco Archdiocese and beyond, I, as the archbishop, represent the victims.  Therefore, all communications about this case were to be directed to my office.

Unfortunately, the mediator appeared to me to be displaying clear bias in favor of the offenders, even seeing them more as the victims. It was obvious that my involvement was perceived as a problem in achieving restorative justice. I felt shut out of the process.

It got to the point that I could not trust that it would be an honest process, so I decided to withdraw and reconsider it after the trial.

I was therefore shocked and appalled when I learned that the DA had applied the diversion tactic, reducing the crime to a misdemeanor because the offenders had participated in restorative justice, without the consent of the victims of the crime.

Apparently, a small group of parishioners of St. Raphael parish posed as representatives of the victims, in direct violation of what I had made clear to the DA. There was no honest restorative justice process. I believe people in the DA’s Office know this.

What other religious or civic organization would be treated so unfairly?  The case of graffiti found on a Hindu temple in New Jersey is being investigated as a hate crime, while a possible felony committed against us goes unpunished.

Moreover, I have recently learned, indirectly, that the offenders sent letters of apology to the court. No one has ever presented a letter of apology to me, on behalf of San Francisco’s Catholics, which points to a bigger question: The apology remains unknown. To have any meaning at all, it must be a very public act. Once again, the victims are shut out.

The even bigger problem, though, is that they are going after the wrong man. Yes, it is true that the Indigenous people of California were victims of genocide, but the history books show that genocide was not perpetrated by Spaniards. That only happened after California entered into the union. In other words, it was perpetrated by Americans.

Yes, the Indigenous population did suffer abuse from the Spaniards – mainly the soldiers – but Serra made heroic sacrifices to defend them. He even famously walked all the way from Carmel to Mexico City with his sore leg to obtain faculties from the viceroy for the temporal governance of the natives, taking that authority away from the soldiers. When he died, Indians and Spaniards alike mourned.

This is not how restorative justice is supposed to work; indeed, it is the direct opposite of it. The promise of our country, pronounced every time we recite the pledge of allegiance, is a land of “liberty and justice for all.”  Apparently, that means for all, except Catholics.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone leads the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, serving Marin, San Mateo and San Francisco counties.