TIMES Junipero Serra’s Canonization at Saddleback College

Illustration of Junipero Serra, recently canonized by Pope Francis. (Wikimedia Commons)

During his first trip to the United States, Jorge Bergoglio, better known as Francis Pope, the highest spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, continued his task to spread the gospel of the church, this time with an urgent and spiritual message: attend to the most vulnerable and assist them in their most vital needs. He also canonized of Junipero Serra, the Franciscan Missionary who moved to California to spread the word of God and settled in the area as representative of both the church and the Spanish government. The canonization has open up a new discussion about the sins of the church itself, on the treatment of the native peoples living in California, and throughout the Americas, prior to the European settlers.

Through Canonization the church declares the deseased, usually a priest, a saint for his commitment and teachings of the gospel during his or her life. In this case, Junipero Serra qualified. At Saddeback College, in a recent event, Junipero Serra, casted and evoked doubts. According to writer and historian, Steven Hackel, the ‘move by the church was a political one’.

Political or not, the new vision of the Pope Francis seems to restart and reconnect Catholicism with the new and younger generations who seem disenfranchised with conservative and shallow policies of the recent past. A constituency that falls apart and retreats from the Catholic church in vast numbers.

Pope Francis seeks to revitalize the Gospel with a newer and fresher approach. For Francis, to follow the word of God is to be with he poor, homeless, and the sick. He exhorted priests must be “shepherds living with the smell of the sheep.” His call to the church and believers is to bring assistance to those most need it. A message that has captivated crowds along his paths, venues, churches, stadiums, and parks in the millions. His faith is closer to the dove and the needy, less ideological and more pragmatic, with the vigor of his charisma and ‘gentile’ demeanors which are full of cosmic meanings.

He has become the least conservative Pope on many issues and the most popular in the last century. The first Pope from Latin America whose passion for the people evokes pristine reason and respect. He smiles, he hugs and embraces while being simple, humble and charismatic. He understands the vanities and weaknesses of the human spirit. His new Encyclical, just published over the summer, is a call to diminish the damage done to the planet in a concerning effort to bring awareness about the environment and many unjust policies in the market economies that need to be observed globally and with more attention. For Bishop Edward J. Burns of Juneau, Alaska, Francis’ visit “It was not only a home run. It was a grand slam.”

In his prayers Pope Francis mentioned Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, symbols for Unity, Justice and Solidarity, whose guidance brought attention to the drama millions of people face daily. He has met with the sick and prisoners, gays and lesbians, and the victims of sexual abuse (not comprehensively though), and, of course the immigrants, since he is one. He is aware of the abysmal abuses Irish, Italians, Jewish, Syrians, Palestinians, and Latinos in the USA have been through.

Pope Francis’ message transcends barriers, colors, continents, and ideological premises, since he’s been familiar with abuses of power within governments and the Catholic Church. While in South America he apologized for the genocidal policies towards the Native Americans by the Protestant and Catholic churches and the damages done to them throughout the continent over the centuries.

He very well understands the roll for colonization during Junipero Serra’s times. He understands that it became an instrument of control that helped “cement the country’s hold in the territory, ” and that the Indians were definitely regarded as inferior and discriminated against throughout the Conquest and Post-Colonization process.

Illustration of Junipero Serra, recently canonized by Pope Francis. (Wikimedia Commons)

Finally, he deeply understood that Junipero Serra contributed in one way or another to the decimation of natives, but he also understood “he was a man who was happiest when he was out there directly engaged in pastoral work,” and Serra probably “had genuine intentions to assist and avoid the damages done by the hard core government conquerors to drive” the natives “into submission.”

At Saddleback College, there was a genuine belief of Junipero Serra’s implicit guilt in the conqueror’s journey of decimation caused by forced labor, malnutrition, disease, and warfare. But as testimonies by natives and other missionaries he went beyond some of his limitations to protect many of them from the brutalities of the conquistadores.

Comments

comments