CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA—Pilgrims from around the world were at the Carmel Mission this summer, and yet the Parrish maintained its aura of serenity and spirituality. The parking lot was filled with cars and guests were required to pay a modest fee in the tourist shop to enter the formal grounds of the Minor Basilica.
   Stepping inside the small garden filled with wildflowers, plants, and palm trees the atmosphere retained whispers of what it must have been like 200 years ago. The adobe chapel built sometime after Franciscan missionary Juniper Serra founded the mission in 1770 was replaced by sandstone from the Santa Lucia Mountains, and gone were the 927 Native Americans who provided labor for its construction, agriculture for its operation, and a congregation at the mission’s peak in 1794.
   There was a choir performing for less than a dozen observers inside the chapel, and far fewer guests touring the grounds that include idyllic views of the Moorish bell tower, lime and seashell walls of the church and fountains, as well as the Mora Chapel Museum.  To dwell in this space for any duration is to be infused with a sense of wholeness and safety apart from modernity. In the 20 years since I last visited the missions of California, little appears to have changed inside its walls, while outside the population of the Monterrey peninsula is swelling and the competition for resources ever greater.
   Like many interfaith couples, my family has worked at retaining a sense of belonging within our own faith communities as well as sharing each others’ spiritual practices. Along with believers of all faiths we continue to pray for peace. The Carmel Mission, formally called the Basilica of Mission San Carlos Borromeo Del Rio Carmelo, makes no attempt to cover-up the struggle involved in the conversion of Native Americans to Christianity. By the early 1800s, the Indian population at the mission dwindled as it lacked immunity to European diseases. There are more than 200 Indians  interred at the mission, and another 3,000 Native Americans buried in an adjacent cemetery in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
   The history of the mission is provided to tourists. From the literature, we learned that the mission became a conventional Parrish in 1833, and the Indian and Hispanic settlers were dispersed. Junipero Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1985, and two years later the Pope visited the Mission during his tour of the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.CarmelMission.Org.

 
Article and drawing by Julie Z. Russo