Mission San Juan Capistrano (originally christened in 1716 as ''La Misión San José de los Nazonis'' and located in South Central Texas) was founded in 1731 by

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

of the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

Order, on the eastern banks of the

San Antonio River The San Antonio River is a major waterway that originates in central Texas in a cluster of springs in midtown San Antonio, about 4 miles north of downtown, and follows a roughly southeastern path through the state. It eventually feeds into the ...

in present-day

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

. The new settlement (part of a chain of

missions) was named for a 15th-century

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and warrior priest who resided in the

Abruzzo Abruzzo (, , ; nap, label=Neapolitan language, Abruzzese Neapolitan, Abbrùzze , ''Abbrìzze'' or ''Abbrèzze'' ; nap, label=Sabino dialect, Aquilano, Abbrùzzu; #History, historically Abruzzi) is a Regions of Italy, region of Southern Italy wi ...

region of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. The mission San Juan was named after Saint John of

Capestrano Capestrano ( Abruzzese: ') is a ''comune'' and small town with 885 inhabitants (2017), in the Province of L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy. It is located in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. History Antiquity In the necropolis the statu ...

Mission

The first primitive ''capilla'' (

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

) was built out of brush and mud. Eventually a ''

campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

'', or "bell tower" containing two bells was incorporated into the structure, which was replaced by a long granary with a flat roof and an attractive belfry around 1756. Around 1760, construction of a larger church building begun on the east side of the Mission compound, but was never completed due to the lack of sufficient labor. Mission San Juan did not prosper to the same extent as the other San Antonio missions because lands allotted to it were not sufficient to plant vast quantities of crops, or breed large numbers of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

s and

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

; a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

was constructed in order to supply water to the Mission's ''acequia'', or irrigation system. (the Mission reportedly owned 1,000 head of cattle, 3,500

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

and

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

s, and 100 horses in 1762). Some 265 neophytes resided in

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

huts at the Mission in 1756; by 1790 the native

Coahuiltecan The Coahuiltecan were various small, autonomous bands of Native Americans who inhabited the Rio Grande valley in what is now southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. The various Coahuiltecan groups were hunter-gatherers. First encountered by Europ ...

people were living in stone quarters, though their number had dropped to 58. The Mission often encountered systemic issues concerning corralling the native's nomadic tendencies, which consequently led to large amounts of the converted Indians to sporadically leave. San Juan Capistrano was administered by the

College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro The College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro was the second Roman Catholic missionary college, or seminary (c''olegio apostólico''), in the New World to train missionaries. One of its founders was Damián Massanet. The college, founded in the later 16 ...

until March 1773, when it was placed under the care of the College of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas.

Secularization

The mission was

secularized In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...

on July 14, 1794, after which time it was attended by the resident priest at

Mission San Francisco de la Espada Mission San Francisco de la Espada (also Mission Espada) is a Roman Rite Catholic mission established in 1690 by Spain and relocated in 1731 to present-day San Antonio, Texas, in what was then known as northern New Spain. The mission was built in ...

, until about 1813; it was then attended by the one remaining missionary at the nearby

Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

until 1824. The native population of the Mission were either disbanded, temporarily moved to other missions, or Hispanicized. Mission San Juan was largely neglected until 1840, when religious services were once again conducted, this time by diocesan priests. A neighborhood around the Mission, partially inhabited by the descendants of the Missions population, steadily grew in part due to the construction of a railroad nearby in 1855. Members of the

Claretian , image = Herb CMF.jpg , image_size = 175px , caption = Coat of arms of the Claretians , abbreviation = CMF , nickname = Claretians , formation = , founders = Anto ...

and

Redemptorist The Redemptorists officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer ( la, links=no, Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris), abbreviated CSsR,is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brother ...

Orders also held mass in the church until 1967, when the Franciscans returned to Mission San Juan.

Theft of Three Altar Statues

Three Spanish Colonial-period statues that sat at the altar were stolen sometime on the night of Monday, July 31 or early the morning of Tuesday, August 1, 2000. The statues are between 3–4 feet tall and are constructed of carved wood that had been painted. They are considered priceless due to their religious and historical significance.

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park

As part of a public works project in 1934 some of the native quarters and the foundations of the unfinished church were unearthed. The church, priests' quarters, and other structures were reconstructed during the 1960s. Most of the original square remains within the courtyard walls, portraying an authentic depiction of the floor plan and layout. The grounds of Mission San Juan Capistrano has been maintained by the National Park Service as a part of the

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park San Antonio Missions National Historical Park is a National Historical Park and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site preserving four of the five Spanish frontier missions in San Antonio, Texas, USA. These outposts were established by Catholic r ...

since the 1980s, and the Archdiocese of San Antonio maintains the church building, parish parking lot, rectory (priest's quarters), and the parish hall (Slattery Hall). The hall is located across Villamain Road from the mission but is still inside the park boundary.

2012 Renovation

A $2.2 million renovation in 2012 stabilized the foundation of the mission's church. The shifting clay soil beneath the building had caused severe cracks and falling plaster. A pier-and-beam foundation was added that extends around the perimeter and as far as 29 feet deep into the ground. This allowed buttresses placed against walls in the mid-20th century to be removed. Eggshell white color lime plaster now covers the exterior in contrast to its longstanding dark, weathered look.

Gallery

File:Mission_San_Juan_Capistran_(sic)._3d_Mission_(8970506005).jpg, Full view of the church in 1892. File:Mission San Juan Capistrano Facade2.JPG, Full view of the church before the 2012 renovations. File:Mission San Juan July 2017 5.jpg, Full view of the church after the 2012 renovations. File:Mission San Juan July 2017 3.jpg, View of the grounds around the church in 2017. File:Tierra Sagrada Mission San Juan Capistrano.JPG, Tierra Sagrada "Sacred Earth" at the site of an unfinished church from 1780, where indigenous people who built the mission were buried. File:Mission San Juan nima (4).JPG, Interior of the church before the 2012 renovations. File:Mission San Juan de Capistrano.jpg, Mission San Juan de Capistrano by

Hermann Lungkwitz Hermann Lungkwitz (1813–1891) was a 19th-century German-born Texas romantic landscape artist and photographer whose work became the first pictorial record of the Texas Hill Country. Early life Karl Friedrich Hermann Lungkwitz was born on Marc ...

References

External links

official Mission San Juan Capistrano parish website

{{authority control San Juan Cap San Antonio Missions National Historical Park San Antonio Missions (World Heritage Site) Buildings and structures in San Antonio Roman Catholic churches completed in the 1730s History of San Antonio National Register of Historic Places in San Antonio Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas Archaeological sites in Texas 1731 establishments in Texas Spanish Colonial architecture in Texas 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States