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Pope Francis speaking in the Congress. Oh his way to the chamber, the pontiff stopped to bless a statue of Junipero Serra, a controversial Spanish missionary. (House of Representatives photo)
Pope Francis spent the week in the United States — and in a solemn ceremony named Father Junipero Serra a saint. A saint? That’s a troubling idea for many in Indian Country.
The pope went on top praise Serra’s treatment of Native people, saying the missionary “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it. Mistreatment and wrongs which today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people.”
But that’s where the historical record is hard to reconcile with the story of Serra as a saint.
Many American Indians — especially those from California — say how can any “saint” be a part of such a brutal regime. Indeed, the numbers of dead California Natives are staggering. During those years of the missions, more than two-thirds of the Native people died. Historian and author Elias Castillo once called the missions “death camps run by friars where thousands of California’s Indians perished.” And in his own letters, Serra described indigenous people as “barbarous pagans.”
