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Posted on 09/20/2015 9:47:45 AM PDT by EveningStar
When Pope Francis canonizes Father Junípero Serra on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Serra will be the first Hispanic American saint, and the first saint canonized on American soil.
He also figures to be one of the most controversial saints in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church – a symbol that roils some hearts even as it lifts others.
Serra, an 18th-century Spanish friar who founded nine of the 21 California missions, including Mission San Juan Capistrano, is gaining sainthood, in part, because he helped bring the church to the Americas. By one reckoning, Serra’s legacy is nothing less than California itself.
Serra also was revered during his lifetime, and is said to have reached beyond the cultural mores of his era to help individual native Americans and protect the oppressed.
Many Catholics, particularly in Orange County, have urged Serra’s canonization for decades.
But some Native Americans view Pope Francis’ decision to canonize Serra as a cultural and personal affront.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
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What crap. The Mission system existed to make the natives into subjects of the Spanish King, which they became upon baptism.
Serra was sent there to try to establish a Spanish claim on California which had languished for 300 years since the Treaty of Tordesillas. Once there was word of British and Russian initiatives on the West Coast the Spanish oligarchs in Mexico City got scared and tried to make a feeble claim to the entire West, which El Papa In His Majesty had granted them in 1495.
But Serra and his thugs only inflicted death and destruction on the California Indians. They died by the tens of thousands of smallpox, just as the Aztecs and Toltecs of Central Mexico had died when Cortez arrived.
From 300,000 Indians in 1769 to 150,000 in 1846 at the beginning of the Mexican War, his legacy is death and destruction for the real indigenous of California, not the posturing frauds of Mexico.
No worries. Even though Fr. Serra founded the missions that became most of the big cities of California, the California legislature wants to replace his statue in D.C. with one honoring the ever so much more historically important Sally Ride.
“Serra will be the first Hispanic American saint”
That’s quite a stretch.
He was never an American, as in a US citizen.
He was Spanish and founded missions in California, which was Spanish territory at the time.
“By one reckoning, Serra’s legacy is nothing less than California itself”
He had a huge impact on founding and creating California.
Your leftist polemic, on the other hand, is more along the lines of the fecal matter you attribute to the above quote.
He is just repeating standard leftist/communist polemic.
What a ridiculous statement! US citizen is NOT the definition of "American". American means a resident of either North, or South, America.
Swallowing boatloads of drivel fed by the leftist Marxist professoriate?
What should be avoided is the hype about him being an American or even sillier by some low information Catholic Bishops , is that he was a Founder of America.
The most accurate history shows that he was a citizen of Spain assigned to establish missions in New Spain. He was a contemporary of George Washington and gathered donations for the Revolutionary war for unknown motives, but could have been from dislike for England.
Are you ignorant?
American is synonymous with US citizen.
Hispanic American refers to US citizens of Hispanic background.
Whether American should be synonymous with US citizen is a separate issue.
I guess it depends upon where you went to school. It's never meant exclusively a US citizen in my LONG life.
Tell me, what country does European mean? Russian? (made up of many countries which float in and out of the soviet empire) and many other examples.
I guess you can call me ignorant if you think that an alum of UC Berkeley (when it was the premier University in the country that a woman could attend) as well as Cardinal Strich University. (magna cum laude) qualifies as “ignorant”.
My daughter, like all Californian 4th graders, had to do a semester-long study of the missions, including building a model of a mission, bells and all, which amounts to nothing more than ongoing propaganda for the genocide you aptly describe. I tried to give her the counter story in the most 4th-grader-friendly manner I could manage...
I’m curious, what term is used to denote a US citizen?
A USian?
The article clearly means US Saint.
Serra was not the first canonized Catholic who lived in the Americas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bertrand_(saint)
Louis Bertrand was canonized centuries before. There are a number fo Hispanics in America who became saints before Serra.
The statement only makes sense if Hispanic American is referring to Serra as a US citizen.
The author’s attempted point is a fine one - that he is the first Hispanic Saint from a place that is now part of the US.
Father Serra gave up a professorship in Spain to become a missionary in the new world. When he heard that General George Washington was having a difficult time at Valley Forge he collected money from his other Franciscans and has it sent to Washington. George was quite touched by that act.
“But Serra and his thugs only inflicted death and destruction on the California Indians. They died by the tens of thousands of smallpox, just as the Aztecs and Toltecs of Central Mexico had died when Cortez arrived. “
I was not aware of that-—thanks for the info.
.
Personally, I think of Juan Crespi as the saint of that time.
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