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Serra, no matter how emblematic he was, though, was also replete with tensions and ironies, even paradoxes. He stated that he was always obedient to his superiors, but as he grew in stature and seniority, he did largely as he pleased, with few checks on his own authority and actions beyond the narrow confines of his own order and mission. He believed in the nearly absolute powers of the Church yet lived at a time when the Bourbon state was consolidating its authority over that institution. He had a domineering personality but was bereft of an individual self: he was opinionated, strong-willed, determined, and passionately devoted to his life’s work but was typical of his age in that he had no real identity of his own beyond his order. As a deeply religious Catholic of the eighteenth century, he fervently distrusted his own intuition or inner voice, and he chose to follow his God’s will as best he could discern it. Finally, and
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Steven W. Hackel (Junipero Serra: California's Founding Father)