Talk:Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was No consensus Duja► 10:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support per comments above. --evrik ^(talk) 23:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support Coincidentally I was just in the church recently. It once had "Mission Nuestra..." in big bronze letters over its entry, but the word "Mission" has been visibly removed. A docent at the Olvera Street visitors center volunteered that "they tried to make it a mission [after the fact], but didn't succeed". -Will Beback · † · 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose as the facility was originally founded as one of the California missions (even if it didn't remain as such), and (as is noted above) carried the name until very recently. The current use and name is identified in the article, and the facility's real notability is (in part) derived from the fact that the was intended to be another mission. I suggest a redirect from "La Iglesia..."--Lord Kinbote 00:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Upon further reflection, I think La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles should be developed into a separate article, assuming there is sufficient, notable information available to do so.--Lord Kinbote 18:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• This was NEVER a mission. There were 21 missions . It was a church at the settlement that came from the San Gabriel mission. Never, Never, Never a mission. --evrik ^(talk) 00:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Why would the Iglesia have a separate article from the Mission? -Will Beback · † · 04:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

This article is about the iglesia. --evrik ^(talk) 19:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The current text reads,

• The installation was therefore never actually granted mission status ...

Is that incorrect? -Will Beback · † · 19:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose per Lordkinbote's comments above and below; in fact, I support the creation of two articles for this subject. The willy-nilly changes and reversions by evrik should stop now. Mdhennessey 20:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Please do not split the article. Especially while this discussion is continuing. There is no mission, only the iglesia. --evrik ^(talk) 21:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Former asistencia

From the California Mission Studies Association web site:

Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Landmark 144 [Formerly an asistencia to Mission San Gabriel] LOCATION: 535 N. Main St. near Macy St., Los Angeles, CA --Lord Kinbote 14:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• It was a church and not a mission. Here are three sources that say there were only 21 missions:
  • http://www.californiamissions.com/cahistory/index.html
  • http://library.thinkquest.org/3615/missions.html
  • http://missionsofcalifornia.org

--evrik ^(talk) 19:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

And if you go to http://missionsofcalifornia.org you will see that they list 22 missions, because the site designates San Antonio de Pala (Asistencia) as Mission San Antonio de Pala. I suggest you consult more scholarly sources in the future.--Lord Kinbote 00:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

At that site they list all the missions on one page, with no mention of this one. [1]. -Will Beback · † · 01:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

It's #22 on the list; here is the specific page.--Lord Kinbote 04:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

What does Pala have to do with this subject? I meant that "Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles" isn't on the list. -Will Beback · † · 05:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Evrik's argument is that there are only 21 "missions" and cited the web site as one of his sources; the cite lists 22 facilities, calling each one (including Pala) a mission.--Lord Kinbote 16:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The portions of the article dealing with the church (along with the image) have been moved to La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles.--Lord Kinbote 20:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• I just revrted that change because it goes against what we are trying to do here. This entire article was supposed to be moved to that name. What you did went against tagging the article for renaming, unless you planned to nominate this for deletion. --evrik ^(talk) 20:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• I agree with -Will Beback and talk. What a waste of time and effort this page has become. --South Philly 20:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of asistencia

Mdhennessey came across an interesting article at the California Mission Studies Association web site (probably the only truly scholarly mission-related site on the Web) that not only defines the term asistencia in the global sense but confirms that La Misión de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles clearly qualified as such:

...Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt...the father of mission history denied such an interpretation. He defined an asistencia as "a mission on a small scale with all the requisites for a mission, and with Divine service held regularly on days of obligation, except that it lacked a resident priest." Since the Plaza Church fitted the definition, the two assigned priests at San Gabriel had all they could do to administer a mission and its western asistencia."

And for the record, a stand-alone church was referred to as a visita, or "visiting chapel."--Lord Kinbote 04:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

So then it was an asistencia of San Gabriel rather than a mission. -Will Beback · † · 05:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Precisely, though it was established as Misión rather than Asistencia. The "Pala Asistencia" later became "Mission Pala" for example (an in fact it was the goal that all asistencias would eventually become full-blown missions in support of the overall plan to convert the native population).--Lord Kinbote 05:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

So if we know that "Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles" was an asistencia instead of a mission then why are we fighting over this? -Will Beback · † · 07:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that there are two separate entities: one named Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles (a satellite mission founded by the Franciscans as a part of Spain's efforts to proselytize the native populations), and another named La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles that emerged on the mission site some years later, for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual needs of the foreign settlers. We should call it a day with the two separate articles as a compromise.--Lord Kinbote 08:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You've just presented evidence that there never was a mission, only an asistencia. What sources are there for Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles being an acutal mission? -Will Beback · † · 09:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

To reiterate what has already stated above, asistencias and missions were one-and-the-same, save for the presence of a resident priest (which would have actually required two resident priests as the Franciscan Order prohibited the missionaries from living alone); this settlement was founded as "Mission NSRLA," and that name appears to have survived in one form or another for more than 225 years (even by your own observation), hence the article as currently named is correct. It was never "Asistencia NSRLA." The "Iglesia NSRLA" designation is a relatively recent development, and applies only to the surviving chapel building, whis why this now has its own article. Also as stated above, the entities served different purposes.--Lord Kinbote 16:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur with this reasoning. What exactly is the opposition to having two different articles? Mdhennessey 17:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't care if we have a dozen articles so long as they are accurate and verifiable. Reasoning is great but what are our sources that call this subject a mission? Several sources have been presented which do not call it one. This page [2], answers the question directly, saying that as of the first building the name was "Iglesia". Yenne, right now the only source for this article, does not call it a "Mission". We agree here that it was actually an asistencia. So why do we call it a mission? -Will Beback · † · 18:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The site you link to doesn't even have the right date (1784). Engelhardt is the only real authority cited in all of this, and he (as a representative of the founding agency, by the way) confirmed that it was an asistencia and not an iglesia. I don't understand why this is so hard to understand. The mission was founded under the authority of the Alta California mission hierarchy, the iglesia was not. And I don't believe that "we" are calling it a mission, that was its name (same as Mission San Antonio de Pala). And virtually all of the other web sites listed (other than CMSA) lack scholarly credibility.--Lord Kinbote 18:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see Engelhardt cite in the article. The two cites to Yenne are incorrect - he only mentions the pueblo of Los Angeles, not any asistencia, mission, or iglesia. His book can be viewed in Amazon. -Will Beback · † · 19:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, there's no mention of this mission in the "authoritative" CMSA site. When they do mention the edifice, they simply refer to it as the "Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles".[3][4] Could that be a compromise name for a merged article? -Will Beback · † · 06:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, here is another authoritative article on the founding of the puebla, one which gives a very different view of events then we have here.[5] -Will Beback · † · 06:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] What a "mission" is

A mission station is a location for missionary work. Historically, Christian missions would attempt to convert locals to Christianity, teach Western culture and language, and offer some kind of social service. The mission station would serve as a place for the missionaries and perhaps some converts to live and work. In some colonies, mission stations became a focus of settlement for displaced or formerly nomadic people.

This further illustrates why an asistencia is a mission.--Lord Kinbote 19:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. I agree that an asistencia did the work of a mission, with a small m. However, the common understanding is that there were 21 Missions with a large M, and this was not one of them. It was founded as a parish church, an iglesia. "La Iglesia de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles-the Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels"[6] --evrik ^(talk) 05:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't this boil down to the difference between the name and the function of the place? If the building served the function for missionary work, in my opinion, it is a mission. This is more significant than, two centurys later, whether or not people apply the label Mission. Missions are defined by function, not arbitrary labels. BruceHallman 15:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

It may have functioned as a mission - we don't actually know because the sources are scant. But it almost certainly was not called a mission, and that is what matters for the purposes of naming the article. I propose that we follow the lead of the CMSA website and call the article "Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles". We can discuss the nature of asistencias in the text. -Will Beback · † · 17:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I would support a merge/move to Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles.--Lord Kinbote 18:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The building has a proper name, and that is La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles. It would be like calling the White House by its function, the President's House. --evrik ^(talk) 17:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be no such thing. And yes, the current building is La Iglesia, not the original settlement.--Lord Kinbote 18:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• That last sentence made no sense, but if I understand you correctly, you just said, ..."the current building is La Iglesia." This is what I have said all along. This is why the name of the article should be changed. --evrik ^(talk) 17:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Evrik, would you support merging and moving it to Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles? We could have sections on the mission era and the Iglesia era, so to speak. The other two names could redirect there. -Will Beback · † · 18:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• No, because I think that a single article on the building is necessary... and since it was never a big M mission. I would however support the an expansive discussion in the article titled Pueblo de Los Angeles to discuss the founding of the pueblo. -- evrik ^(talk) 19:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

That's what we're talking about, a single article that would contain information about the building. And yes, some of the info in this article now is more relevant to the pueblo. -Will Beback · † · 21:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• The building is historic enough to merit its own article, separate from the pueblo. Besides:
  • St Paul's Cathedral
  • Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Indiana
  • St. Peter's Basilica
  • St. Stephen's Church

all have the building type in the name ... La Iglesia de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles or The Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels are the most appropriate.

--evrik ^(talk) 21:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'd support changing the name of the article to La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles I'm a lifelong resident of California and a graduate of California schools, and Wikipedia is the ONLY place I've ever seen the Plaza Church referred to as a mission. It's always been called a parish church. I'll take the word of all my California State textbooks over that of a couple of Wikipedians. Whyaduck 14:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archdiocese

The Archdiocese website has some relevant information: [7] and [8]. -Will Beback · † · 06:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Also: "Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church" [9]. That must be the result of a policy somewhere, one that we shouldn't follow here. -Will Beback · † · 06:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church is a variation of Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels. I would be okay with the latter if we stick with an English name, but seeing it is know in Spanish and English, I would say keep it in Spanish and have an English redirect. --evrik ^(talk) 15:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)