An 18th century priest who walked thousands of miles to spread Christianity in California and founded several Catholic missions that gave rise to the state’s major cities will soon be elevated into sainthood.
Blessed Junipero Serra, who died at age 70 in 1784, will be canonized by Pope Francis on Sept. 23 in the largest Catholic church in the Americas, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
The news — which was originally surprising since only one miracle has been attributed to the Spanish-born Franciscan priest — has sparked great joy among the international network of Serra clubs, which were founded in Seattle 80 years ago to encourage men and women to join the priesthood or other consecrated religious positions in the Catholic Church.
“There’s a huge enthusiasm concerning the canonization,” said John Liston, executive director of USA Council of Serra International in Chicago.
Serra was chosen as a patron years ago because he exemplified religious zeal to spread Christianity to the unchurched, and he is viewed as “the spiritual father of the Western United States,” said Mr. Liston.
In 1988 Serra was put on the path to sainthood by being beatified by Pope John Paul II. Serra, the now-canonized pontiff said, “sowed the seeds [of] the Christian faith amid the momentous changes wrought by the arrival of European settlers in the New World.”
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That first step was taken even though Serra did not have two Vatican-confirmed miracles attributed to his intercession, said Mr. Liston.
When Francis announced his canonization this year, he “said that because of Father Serra’s good work and his tremendous faith and zeal, he’s performing what’s called an equivalent canonization, which basically says the good works performed by Father Serra are equivalent to one of the miracles required for canonization,” said Mr. Liston.
Serra International, which has more than 16,000 members in 35 countries, will have representatives in Washington for the canonization ceremony and then a celebratory dinner. Serra Club members around the world will be holding Masses of thanksgiving and events honoring the long-prayed-for sainthood, Mr. Liston added.
Protests in California
Not all reactions have been positive though.
Members of some American Indian groups have protested the canonization, saying Serra was part of the colonial and military forces that gravely mistreated California’s native populations.
“Serra also intentionally destroyed our culture” by blocking Indians from singing their songs, holding ceremonies or returning to villages and sacred sites, Valentin Lopez, chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, said in a July letter, asking California Gov. Jerry Brown to oppose the canonization.
Mr. Lopez and other critics of Father Serra say the Catholic priests acted cruelly, holding baptized Indians as virtual prisoners in the missions, letting them sicken and starve, and flogging them if they didn’t follow rules or work on the farms.
“Making Serra a saint is a travesty,” Dr. Donna Schindler, a tribal psychiatrist, wrote to the Vatican this year.
In recent weeks members of the American Indian Movement and the Mexica Movement have protested the canonization at various events.
In addition, at least one California lawmaker has sought to remove Serra’s statue in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and replace it with Sally Ride, the California-born astronaut who became the first American woman to travel in space.
California State Sen. Ricardo Lara, who is openly gay, has said he wants to honor the late astronaut because she would be the first female — and the first lesbian — to be honored in the National Statuary Hall.
President Ronald Reagan is California’s other representative statue in the U.S. Capitol.
The statue issue has died down for the moment, and Mr. Brown, who once aspired to be a priest himself, has promised the Serra statue will stay put. Serra is a “very courageous man” and “one of the innovators and pioneers of America,” Mr. Brown said earlier this year.
’Stunning’ humility
Supporters say hundreds of years of investigations and study confirm such praise.
“Father Serra deserves to be a saint. He gave his life in service to the Lord, battled injustice, and inspired everyone who worked with him to be a better Christian,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, wrote in a recent paper called “The Noble Legacy of Father Serra.”
Serra was a devout, zealous man who, once he arrived in Mexico, walked nearly 300 miles to “consecrate his mission at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe before coming to California,” Mr. Donohue said.
Afterwards, the priest founded nine missions along the California coast, including ones that provided the seeds around which grew such modern-day cities as San Francisco, San Diego, Ventura and Carmel-by-the-Sea. He set up agrarian societies, introduced building structures and learned a local Indian language to better speak and preach to their communities. He also baptized around 6,000 people, many of whom were Indians.
Letters and documents show that Serra often stood against other Europeans in defense of Indians, Mr. Donohue wrote. He was heroic, he told The Washington Times. “The humility of this man — his humbleness is just stunning to me.”
Associating Serra with crimes and abuses — especially those that happened after his death — is “the ultimate martyrdom Serra has suffered,” said Ruben Mendoza, an archaeology professor at California State University in Monterey Bay, according to an article in the Our Sunday Visitor newsweekly.
“The historical record on Father Serra and his treatment of the indigenous peoples are as clear as records from that time can be,” said Mr. Liston.
Mr. Liston also noted that Mr. Mendoza’s article matters because he was taught not to think highly of the Catholic missions, but personally reviewed the records with “an archaeologist’s eye.”
He “came to realize that the missions were, in many respects, a sanctuary for the indigenous people, both spiritually and socially,” said Mr. Liston.
Meanwhile, in Francis’ South American tour this summer, the pontiff appeared to seek both a healing spirit and appreciation for people like Serra.
“I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” Francis told a large crowd in Bolivia.
The pope then deviated from his prepared script to add that the “thousands and thousands of priests who strongly opposed the logic of the sword with the power of the cross” should also be remembered.
“There was sin, and it was plentiful. … But where there was sin … there was also an abundance [of] grace increased by the men who defended indigenous peoples,” Francis said.
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
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