Ventura County, CA Junipero Serra Statue Demand Letter

Following BLM protests in June and July, the Ventura, CA City Council voted to remove the statue of St Junipero Serra from in front of the city hall. The county board is also movinig to remove the image of Serra from the county seal. Bp Barron noted his distress at these moves in a YouTube video, since this is his region in the Los Angeles archdiocese.

The Thomas More Society public interest law firm has sent a demand letter responding to both actions.

What started as massive civil unrest could become an uphill legal battle for Ventura County, California and the City of Ventura, California. Thomas More Society attorneys sent them a demand letter on August 5, 2020.

The letter warns the county executive officer and city mayor that they are displaying unconstitutional hostility to the Catholic religion and subscribing to anti-Catholic animus in removing a statue of the “Apostle of California” Fr. Junipero Serra. The statue was removed from its longstanding location outside City Hall, and officials are considering the removal of the Catholic Hispanic Saint’s image from the county seal and city police badges, thus sparking a Ventura Junipero Serra controversy that has reached national attention.

The letter, signed by Thomas More Society Special Counsel Charles LiMandri, and Jeffrey Trissell, both of LiMandri and Jonna LLP, addresses the county and city’s kowtowing to the radical demands of a vile anti-Catholic online petition.

. . . LiMandri explained the basic problem with the city and county succumbing to the newly arisen hordes of icon-toppling rabble rousers. “The First Amendment affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any. The government must neither abdicate its responsibility to maintain a division between church and state nor evince a hostility to religion by disabling the government from, in some ways, recognizing our religious heritage.”

The letter reads in part:

As explained below, we are greatly troubled by the County of Ventura and the City of San Buenaventura’s(collectively “Ventura”)recent efforts to scrub from their respective jurisdictions all references to the great Catholic, Hispanic Saint Junípero Serra—with most specific emphasis on the depictions of Fr. Serra on the County Seal and the City Police Badges. From an historical perspective, Fr. Serra is one of the greatest men that California has ever known, a founding father who represents California in the U.S. Capital’s National Statuary Hall Collection. From a religious perspective, Fr. Serra is beloved by the Catholic (and especially Hispanic Catholic) communities as the Apostle to California. Efforts to remove him from Ventura’s municipal imagery can only be perceived by reasonable observers as unconstitutional “hostility toward religion that has no place in” our modern, pluralistic society.

Thus, we write to inform you that should Ventura remove Fr. Serra from its Seal, its Police Badges, or any other similar prominent municipal location, we will bring a claim seeking to enjoin such conduct under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and seek our attorneys’ fees. Our firm was lead counsel in defending the Mt. Soledad Cross in San Diego—which proudly still stands today—and we have extensive experience in ensuring that our attorneys’ fees are paid when we prevail. Thank you for considering the below as you take subsequent action during these times of national and local anti-Catholic sentiment.

Pastor McCoy recently noted that he doesn't believe the county board expected the level of controversy they've generated. It appears that he's working to try to resolve such issues before they reach the courts. Among other things, with tax revenues down, the county will have a difficult time funding such unexpected legal action, now potentially on two fronts.