First of all, I'm not a Catholic. Second, the history the article talks about is a small part of the total history you cite, particularly in South America.
For the most part, the first missionaries to Upper California were exemplary men given their cultural blindness insofar as appreciating Indians and particularly Indian land management was concerned. The padres were put in a very hard place, to satisfy the imperial desires of the military in keeping the Russians and English from settling the area while simultaneously preparing the Indians for relative autonomy under colonial rule, at least that was the missionary goal. The latter didn't go so well, for lots of reasons, the worst of which was the sexual abuse of Indian women by Spanish soldiers that transmitted syphilis, which was probably the critical cause of demographic collapse among Indians in California. Unlike many researchers on the topic, I believe there is little indication of a pre-colonial smallpox pandemic in California, for lots of reasons I don't have time for here.
My point in saying this is that although the Spanish colonization was catastrophic for the Indians, in no way did the mission system itself intend a genocide, which is what your understandably bitter post suggests. For truly murderous intent toward California Indians, you are better off flinging the "genocide" charge against Americans.
BTW, I assume you know Yurok is a part of the Algic language super-family (or "phylum"). Do you know any lore about how such a small isolate of that linguistic group was established in California when most Algonquins are found in eastern North America?
Thank you, Carrie-Okie.
Thank you, Carrie-Okie.