Crash Course in the Sword and the Cross

Among the longest-running debates in journalism is the one between the specialists and the generalists--the designated hitters versus the utility infielders.

The question is this: In reporting a difficult story, who serves the interests of the average reader more effectively, someone with special expertise, able to grasp the complexities, or someone approaching the subject with the “fresh eye” of the blissfully ignorant?

Take the story of Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-Century missionary known as “the Apostle of California” who was beatified Sunday in Rome by Pope John Paul II. That was the second of Serra’s three steps to sainthood, with only canonization remaining.

Three years ago, when the assignment to cover Serra’s trek to sainthood went to me, I was a generalist in the extreme on the subject: a non-Catholic and a newcomer to California.

The reader will have to judge the resulting 22 articles, but for someone who was absent for fourth-grade California history--by 30 years and 3,000 miles--the assignment was a wonderful education. Schooling began with a tour of some of the nine Franciscan missions Serra founded between San Diego and San Francisco.

The first lesson was that, fundamentally, very little has changed in California in the last few millennia: Water is still the key to everything. Where the fresh water and safe harbors were, the Indians settled thousands of years ago. The Indians were the souls to “save” and the labor to exploit, so the Spanish priests and soldiers stopped and built at their villages 200 years ago.

With the sword and the cross, the European empire-builders converted the Indians, compelling them to build and sustain the missions and presidios that eventually became our great cities. The Indian footpaths connecting the villages became New Spain’s El Camino Real, which much later formed the backbone of the California freeway system.

The second lesson was that, when cultures collide, history favors the ones with modern weapons and antibodies to the most virulent diseases. The victors--in this case the Franciscans and the Spaniards--customarily credit their triumph to the quality of their civilization and God’s will. Exeunt most California Indians, requiescat in pace.

A visit to Rome followed the tour of the missions, with more lessons. The Catholic church has something to teach anyone who works in a large organization--secular or religious--including one that puts out a major U.S. newspaper. Patience, perseverance and subtlety often will out.

Those who labored in Serra’s cause I found to be most patient, persevering and subtle, not to mention extremely likable.

The vagaries of the Vatican, at least that part graciously opened to me, were fascinating. At its core, the exacting, complex process by which sanctity is verified is worthy of great respect. Around the periphery, however, it is quite political.

After all, there are many worthy candidates for sainthood. Serra and those like him, with such powerful backers as the Franciscan order in Rome and wealthy supporters of the cause at home, are less likely to get lost in the shuffle.

When a generalist is assigned a story such as Serra’s, the attendant self-education process often reaches a point where the reporter’s knowledge of the subject begins to reach below the surface. This is especially true when the subject is a rather arcane corner of Catholic church procedure such as sainthood.

I realized that what I had learned--together with the sources that I cultivated--had brought me to this juncture when some of the diocesan bishops I normally spoke with on this and other religion stories began to ask me to explain to them how Serra was doing and what came next in the process.

At that moment, the journalistic evolution was complete. If the pupil had not become the teacher, the generalist had at least become a little more expert.