Editing Mission Santa Barbara (section)

===Post-secularization===
[[File:Santa Barbara Mission buildings and grounds layout circa 1840 from The early days of Santa Barbara, California by Walter A. Hawley (1910).jpg|thumb|Santa Barbara Mission buildings and grounds layout {{circa|1840}}]]
After the [[Mexican Congress]] passed [[Mexican secularization act of 1833|'' An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California'']] on August 17, 1833, Father Presidente [[Narciso Durán]] transferred the missions' headquarters to Santa Barbara, thereby making Mission Santa Barbara the repository of some 3,000 original documents that had been scattered through the California missions.

In 1840, Alta California and [[Baja California Territory]] were removed from the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Sonora|Diocese of Sonora]] to form the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Both Californias|Diocese of Both Californias]]. Bishop [[Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno]], OFM, established his [[cathedra]] at Mission Santa Barbara, making the chapel the [[pro-cathedral]] of the diocese until 1849. Under Bishop [[Thaddeus Amat y Brusi]], C.M., the chapel again served as a pro-cathedral, for the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey in California|Diocese of Monterey]] and then the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, from 1853 to 1876. It is for this reason that of all the California missions, only the chapel at Mission Santa Barbara has two matching bell towers. At that time, that particular architectural feature was restricted to a [[cathedral church]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}

[[File:José_González_Rubio.png|thumb|right|upright|Padre [[José González Rubio]], who served as the longtime Chief Administrator of the mission.]]

When President [[Abraham Lincoln]] restored the missions to the Catholic Church on March 18, 1865, the Mission's leader at the time, Friar [[José González Rubio]], came into conflict with Bishop Amat over the matter of whether the Mission should be under the ownership of the Franciscan order rather than the diocese.  Bishop Amat refused to give the deed for the Mission to the Franciscans, but in 1925, Bishop [[John J. Cantwell]] finally awarded the deed to them.

As the center for the Franciscans, the Mission played an important role in education in the late 1900s and early twentieth century. From 1854 to 1885 it was chartered as an [[Apostolic school|apostolic college]] and from 1869 to 1877 it also functioned as a college for laymen,<ref name="FST">[http://www.fst.edu/aboutFST/history.html Franciscan School of Theology History] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070213221119/http://www.fst.edu/aboutFST/history.html|date=February 13, 2007}}</ref> Thereby making it Santa Barbara's first institution of higher education.  In 1896, this education initiative led to the creation of a [[Minor seminary|high school seminary program]] that in 1901 would become a separate institution, Saint Anthony's Seminary.<ref name="FST" /> In 1929 the college level program was relocated to [[Mission San Luis Rey de Francia]] and would become [[San Luis Rey College]] from 1950 to 1968 before relocating to Berkeley, California what is today the [[Franciscan School of Theology|Franciscan School of Theology (FST)]].

[[File:Mission Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, Calif (NYPL b12647398-66787).tiff|left|thumb|Mission Santa Barbara from the east, early 20th century]]