Ventura's desecrated St. Mary Cemetery Activists confront Cardinal Mahony - Historic Mission's 225th Anniversary displays Municipal & Church Mistreatment of 6,000 Pioneer's Graves.
On a downtown Sunday March 30 2008, a public historic outdoor event occurred with hundreds of local Ventura citizens attending. Some people thought it was a celebration of the 225th Ventura Mission's anniversary with the special attendance of Los Angeles' Cardinal Mahony. Cardinal Mahony celebrated an open-air Mass and the Knights of Columbus served a lunch. MORE informed public-minded ‘St Mary's desecrated cemetery' activists knew that an informational public picket was scheduled there. Several members of Steven Schleder's founded ‘Restore St. Mary's Cemetery' movement used this event to inform the public about this miscarriage of municipal and church abuse. ‘Restore St. Mary's Cemetery' members have established a web site disseminating information about their cemetery restoration project. The web site, http://www.restorestmarys.org/
‘Restore St. Mary's Cemetery' leaders have researched the long history of the citys and church's cemetery desecration, the subsequent mistreatment of the grounds and tombs. An ancient Catholic mission cemetery is in an area west of the present day Mission church only to have those 2,800 graves defiled with the current mission school facility built on top of the sacred early pioneer's tombs without those remains re-interned elsewhere. But there is a long history of sacred cemetery mistreatment in Ventura. Another instance can be found one mile east of the Mission San Buenaventura, Ventura's dog park ‘Cemetery Park' (located between Main and Poli Streets). 3,000+ graves of Catholics, Protestants, Asian, Jewish, native Chumash, Congressional Medal of Honor winning war veterans (Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish Wars), pioneers, and many Spanish land grant family members tombs buried in the defiled St Mary's ex-cemetery. In 1964, the city took the cemetery property. The city employees quietly dumped hundreds of valuable historic family marble tombstones into local Hall Canyon and along an adjoining riverbank, which is now under a levy. City work crews only covered the graves with a topsoil layer for grass. Again, thousands of historic religious early tombs were NOT moved and re-interned elsewhere. Cemetery Park is where its many neighbors (consisting of several city officials) walk illegally un-leashed dogs to defecate liberally everyday on hallowed soul's graves and few family headstones. Ten ‘Restore St. Mary's Cemetery' member activists conducted a respectful ‘silent' informational sidewalk rally event during the post-Mass public lunch. They passed out ‘St. Mary's Cemetery' flyers and carried picket signs expressing their views like ‘Respect St Mary's Graves!' Several hundred St. Mary's Cemetery flyers were passed out to lunch attendees and activists happily told citizens about the institutional sullying of Ventura's 6,000+ ancestor's blessed tombs and consecrated grounds.