When the San Simeon earthquake struck in December 2003, it damaged the historic Mission San Migel Arcangel near Paso Robles, Calif. On May 10, the National Historic Trust put the mission on its list of America’s most endangered historic places.
Fundraising is underway to repair the mission complex, but the sponsors have been denied any assistance from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment. The agency is following the letter of a law that should be more flexible.
California’s constitution’s Blaine Amendment is a so-called Establishment Clause that sets out the separation of church and state. The amendment bars public funding for sectarian institutions and is being interpreted now to apply even to facilities with secular, historical value.
An organization called the Friends of Mission San Miguel was established to raise an estimated $15 million for repairs to the complex which was so badly damaged it had to be closed down. The group, separate from the Catholic parish at San Miguel, applied for a state preservation grant.
An analysis by the California attorney general’s office says the legislature can’t “make an appropriation, or pay from any public fund whatever, or grant anything to or in aid of any religious sect, church, creed, or sectarian purpose, or help to support or sustain any school, college, university, hospital or other institution controlled by any religious creed, church, or sectarian denomination whatever.” Courts have strictly interpreted the Blaine Amendment, and the AG’s letter to the CCHE implies that the mission’s religious purpose bars state funding.
San Miguel is one of 21 California missions stretching from San Diego to Sonoma along El Camino Reál, now U.S. 101. Spanish Franciscans such as Father Junipero Serra, who established Mission San Diego in 1769, built these missions to convert the the native peoples to Christianity. But the missions also served as refuges for travelers and they blazed the trail for Spanish and later U.S. settlement in the West.
Mission San Miguel is a designated national landmark. Founded in 1797 and completed in 1821, its church is adorned with murals painted by Salinan Indians, the only unrestored colonial art left in any mission.
Mercifully, the federal government has proven to be more pragmatic than California. The National Park Service is providing the Friends of Mission San Miguel a $399,000 grant. “The Park Service has a mandate to help tell the history of the nation, and we can’t tell it without at least talking about the role of religion,” said Park Service spokesman David Barna.
We adamantly support the Establishment Clause but it needn’t be applied in a straitjacket. To protect and honor the nation’s history, California should strike a sensible balance to enable preservation.
