Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for June 7, 2023

Pastor supports DA’s plan in Serra statue case

As a senior pastor at Canada’s Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, I am keeping up on news in Marin County about the district attorney’s plan to reduce charges for demonstrators who tore down a statue of Junipero Serra (“Marin DA’s office reduces charges in church statue vandalism case,” May 26).

Archdiocese of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has complained that the protesters’ removal of the statue was a “hate crime.” I wonder what he would call the wholesale slaughter of California’s First Nations by Catholic colonizers. That hate crime was of much greater magnitude than pulling down a statue.

As a Christian minister, I think faith calls us to right the injustices of the past, not to celebrate them with statues that elevate the creators of those injustices. Cordileone seems to think that the statue of a colonizer is a holy relic. I say it is an odious relic of genocide.

Furthermore, as a former Marin resident who studied as a history major at Dominican University, I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on the history of Mission San Rafael. So I know that Serra died more than 30 years before the mission was founded. He never visited the site, making his statue there less than historic.

Perhaps Cordileone can more profitably turn his attention to other crimes, like genocide and clergy abuse, to name a few.

— the Rev. Deana Dudley, Toronto (Canada)

People’s unfair critique of Christianity is wrong

I am writing in support of Archdiocese of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. In his recently published Marin Voice commentary (“Archbishop frustrated by DA’s deal with defendants in Serra statute case,” June 1) he pointed out that he was the one who asked for restorative justice for the vandals who destroyed the statue of Junipero Serra.

Despite this, some have recently said that he is opposed to restorative justice. I don’t believe that’s true. It appears to me that Christians are one of the few remaining groups that most feel it is acceptable to be bigoted against.

Ford Greene, the lawyer for one of the vandals, recently wrote a Marin Voice commentary (“As Catholic leaders make demands, claims about activists, history must be questioned,” June 2). He appeared to be making an attempt at raising doubt about Cordileone’s response to the decision by the Marin County District Attorney’s Office to reduce charges.

When Greene writes that Catholic leaders called for “swift, severe punishment,” I think he is being dishonest based on all of Cordileone’s public comments. Greene then makes a moral judgment by stating the outcry “hardly represents the Christian virtue of charity.” It appears to me that charity, in the mind of Greene, means letting criminals off the hook.

The eradication of Christianity cannot be accomplished honestly, since that would require its enemies to admit to their own lack of charity and their own bigotry and hate. It’s as though we allow people to project all the hatred onto Christians and accuse us of being the bigots.

In a way, this is all as it should be. As Jesus Christ said to his Apostles, “If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”

— Alice Liddell, Larkspur

Reducing charges makes sense in this case

I was taken aback by the reaction to the Marin County District Attorney’s Office reducing charges against demonstrators’ defacement of a statue of Junipero Serra in San Rafael (“Marin Catholics protest dropped charges for statue vandals,” May 31).

To suggest that the defacement was equal to a “hate crime” seems a bit over the top compared to recent instances in recent years, like the 2018 mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue or the 2015 racially motivated mass shooting of Black churchgoers in South Carolina. Pouring paint and pulling down a statue is much less serious in comparison.

The restorative justice sentence offered by District Attorney Lori Frugoli seems more in keeping with the forgiveness message of the Catholic Church than the vengeful alternative suggested by the protesters.

— George Grandemange, Novato

Vandals must be punished for invasion, destruction

I have a question regarding the recent decision about those who tore down the state of Junipero Serra (“Marin DA’s office reduces charges in church statue vandalism case,” May 26): When is the illegal invasion and destruction of private property by seemingly anarchistic demonstrators considered just a misdemeanor? The crime took place in full daylight with members of the San Rafael Police Department eventually becoming involved.

It seems that no one’s private property is safe if others consider something on their property to be offensive to their beliefs. I consider the invasion of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 to be a similar case of anarchy. Those criminals have been dealt with in fines and prison —not misdemeanors.

From what I have read, District Attorney Lori Frugoli’s office appears to be in obvious disarray. That only increases the problem. The backlog of unresolved offenses goes back years. This is totally unacceptable. Anarchy should be punished appropriately, plain and simple. No attempts to “whitewash” what the vandals did can change that. This is not going away.

— B. Stephens, San Rafael

Archbishop should focus on drawing more people

I am writing about the recently published Marin Voice commentary by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (“Archbishop frustrated by DA’s deal with defendants in Serra statute case,” June 1).

I think he should be more concerned about the problems within the Catholic Church. I am concerned about the lack of people interested in becoming priests, the risks of churches closing and empty pews on Sundays.

— Margarida da Silva, Novato

MMWD’s viability must be part of housing discussion

I am writing in regard to the editorial published in the IJ on June 1 with the headline “Hard decisions await MMWD as scrutiny mounts.” In response, I would like to mention California Assembly Bill 838. If passed, it would require the state’s water agencies to work on showing how they are taking care of their agencies. It could work as sort of a continuing “environmental impact report.”

Such a bill is long overdue. Paired with state Sen. Scott Weiner’s SB 423 bill regarding affordable housing, it makes a great deal of sense.

If the Marin Municipal Water District had a detailed report stating that the health of the water system is in need of $200 million to replace aged pipes to handle the current customer load, they would then have a means to state what affect the mandate from the state for more than 12,000 new homes in Marin County would have on the system.

MMWD might be in such poor shape that the service area might have to be given a pass on its regional housing needs allocation requirements. Should state Attorney General Bonta seek to press the housing mandates, he might be called on to use the resources of his office to finance an outside study of MMWD.

At the very least, Bonta still needs to examine the fact that, in 2018, the state auditor found the allocation procedure for determining mandated housing to be flawed and in need of further examination. If Bonta does not verify that this problem has been corrected, then I think the whole allocation process should be challenged in the courts.

Communities in Santa Ana and Huntington Beach are in the process of doing just that right now.

—Rick Johnson, Novato