Padre Serra Parish

In 1988, as St. Mary Magdalen was no longer large enough to accommodate the area's growing population, a group of 2,500 parishioners in eastern Camarillo and the Santa Rosa Valley formed a new parish.

[1] When the founding pastor, Father Kidney, first walked the cleared and graded site, he said, "This is one that Serra himself would have chosen: an elevation that commands a view of the sea, of adjacent valleys and of the mountain ridges of Los Padres National Forest to the north.

[3] Shortly before its dedication, the Los Angeles Times reported: "A bell tower announces the building's holy purpose, and multihued, earth-toned walls and a red-tiled roof make it look like a Mediterranean villa.

"[1] The church building has a number of unusual features, including: The architect, David Martin, said at the time of the dedication that he believed "the functional, non-traditional design caters to a new generation of churchgoers.

"[4] Ventura County Supervisor Maggie Kildee, who spoke briefly before the dedication, said the new church would likely become a community landmark since its pink belltower could be seen for miles.

"[5] Directed to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, the reviewer found the tabernacle "shaped like a brass Dutch oven upon a rock" and an abstract crucifix "with shells scattered on it in place of a corpus.

"[5] A 2000 reader's poll in the same publication ranked Padre Serra as one of the top ten churches in the archdiocese for its architecture, noting: "Complete 'village' concept, integrity, and Indian motifs.

Francis J. Weber, then director of the San Fernando Mission, was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times and rejected the notion that the Indian population had a rich civilization: "They were on par with what we studied in school as the Stone Age.

"[12] A CSUN archeologist responded that the California Indians "had a complex economy, stable villages and elaborate systems of belief in art and religion", and asserted that Weber's comments were "an heir to the kind of thinking that let European societies eradicate whole cultures.