Mission Basilica San Buenaventura (Ventura, California)

 Roman Catholic church, religious organisation

211 East Main Street
Ventura, CA 93001
(805) 643-4318
www.sanbuenaventuramission.org/

Mission Basilica San Buenaventura was founded on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1782. Named for a Franciscan theologian, Saint Bonaventure, it was the last of the missions founded by Father Serra. Mission San Buenaventura was planned to be founded in the year 1770, but the founding was delayed because of the low availability of the military escorts needed to establish Mission San Buenaventura. In 1793, the first church burned down. (It took the neophytes 16 years to build the new church, which still stands.)
In 1834 the Mission San Buenaventura, along with almost all of the other California Missions, were wrested from the hands of the Franciscan padres during the great "secularization" by the newly independent Mexican government. Some of the missions were given over to the secular clergy, so as to administer the sacraments, but this was the exception and not the norm. The Mission San Buenaventura was eventually abandoned, its lands being divided up among the Californio Ranchos. It wasn't until 1862 that most of the California Missions were returned to the Catholic Church after the Bishop of Monterey, José Sadoc Alemañy y Conill, petitioned President Lincoln for their return.