Choose at least 3 Documents to incorporate in your Father Serra and the Missions paper
Document 1
LETTER DESCRIBING CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA (1774, by Fray Junipero Serra)
Hail Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
My greatly venerated, most excellent Sir:
I have just written at length to Your Excellency by a courier whom Captain Don Fernando Rivera, four days since, dispatched for California, and in answer to the letter of Your Excellency bearing date 25th May, which, on the 6th August, was received by conduct and hand of the said captain by Father Lector Fray Francisco Palou, who is my companion here…. The reason for sending these letters and documents by a means usually rather tardy was this: The naval expedition having arrived at this port on the 27th of August last, in the frigate Santiago, and on board of her in safety the two chaplains (God be thanked!), her captain informed us that he had a mind to remain at this port until the middle of October, by which time it is probable that the families expected by Don Fernando will be here, and then to make the exploration of the port of San Francisco, with a view to the founding of the mission, or missions, which may seem necessary, in order that the region about that port be occupied in accordance with the orders of Your Excellency and the intention of our catholic monarch. …
I gave to Your Excellency, also, the agreeable tidings that these new christians, following the example set by some of the workmen of the vessels whose services I managed to secure, are learning how to apply themselves to labor, hoe in hand and with the bar and in making adobes, in reaping or harvesting the wheat and in carting these crops, as well as in other work in which they take part. I reported, also, that this year there have been harvested at this mission, in addition to twenty fanegas of barley, one hundred and twenty-five of wheat, some horse-beans and a greater quantity of kidney-beans, and together with continuous help from the vegetable garden—in the consumption of which all share. There is reason for expecting a fair return from the maize sown, and it is well-grown and in good condition, and there will be obtained a goodly number of fish from the abundance of sardines which, for twenty consecutive days, have been spawning along the beach near this mission, and a reasonable harvest from the spiritual advancement we are experiencing each day—thanks be to God! At all the missions they are making preparation for more extensive sowings in the coming year, and I trust God that a happy outcome may attend the work.
…And I continue praying that God our Lord guard the health, life and prosperity of Your Excellency for many years in His holy grace. From this mission favored by Your Excellency of San Carlos de Monterey, Sept. 9,1774.
Most Excellent Sir:—Your most affectionate and humble servant and chaplain, who venerates and loves you, kisses the hands of Your Excellency.
Fray Junipero Serra
Document. 2
Founding of Mission San Gabriel (translated from Spanish by Amanda Marchand), 1771 From the book La Vida de Junípero Serra by Francisco Palóu
On the 6th of August they left San Diego and headed north. Upon reaching the River of Earthquakes they began selecting the land for the new mission. There came upon them a great group of gentiles, all armed, with two captains among them. With horrifying yells they attempted to impede the founding of the mission by force. The fathers wanted to stop the warring and avoid misfortunes, so one brought out an artists canvas with an image of Our Lady of Sorrows, and showed it to the barbarians. As soon as it was done, they were all defeated by the beautiful image, and were caused to throw down their spears, bows, and arrows. They ran to their captains, and begged them to place their necklaces of shells in front of the image, to demonstrate their appreciation, and to demonstrate that they wanted peace. A great gathering of all of the villages was called, and more and more men, women, and children came to see the Sacred Virgin. They brought seeds and left them in front of the Most Sacred Lady, thinking that she ate as they did.
Once the gentiles had seen the image of Our Lady, they began visiting the holy fathers with more frequency, and showed their great contentment with our presence as their neighbors in their lands. The holy fathers tried to show their corresponding good will through signs of affection and gifts.
These natural people were now more contented, only to have one of our soldiers ruin said contentment for us, giving grave offense to one of their most important captains, and to God above as well. The captain wanted to take his revenge against the offense that had been given him. He called together all of the neighboring villages. Gathering together all the men capable of taking up arms, they presented themselves to the two soldiers, one of whom was the wrongdoer. When the soldiers saw the multitude of armed men, they quickly dressed themselves in their leathers and helmets and took up their muskets. The gentiles began to let fly arrows, all at the one insolent soldier. That soldier aimed at the captain, fired his musket, and killed him. Seeing the strength of our weapons, that they had never before experienced, and that their arrows did us no harm, they fled.
Document 3
Journal of La Pérouse 1786: Monterey Mission
The church is neat though thatched with straw. It is … adorned with some tolerable pictures, copied from originals in Italy. Among them is a picture of hell … it is absolutely
necessary to strike the imagination of these converts with the most lively impressions … It would be impossible for the protestant worship, which proscribes images, and almost all
the ceremonies of our church, to make any progress with this people. … The Indian village stands on the right, consisting of about fifty huts which serve for seven hundred and forty persons of both sexes, including their children, who compose the mission of San Carlos, or of Monterey. … This general architecture of the two Californias has never undergone the smallest change, notwithstanding the exhortations of the missionaries. The Indians say that they love the open air, that it is convenient to set fire to their house when the fleas become troublesome,and that they can build another in less than two hours. The independent tribes, who as hunters so frequently change their residence, have of course an additional motive. … [Everything] brought to our recollection a plantation at Santo Domingo or any other West Indian Island. … We observed with
concern that the resemblance is so perfect that we have seen both men and women in irons, and others in the stocks. Lastly, the noise of the whip might have struck our ears, this punishment also being administered, though with little severity. …
The day consists in general of seven hours labor and two hours prayer, but there are four or five hours of prayer on Sundays and feast days. …
Corporal punishment is inflicted on the Indians of both sexes who neglect the exercises of piety, and many sins, which in Europe are left to Divine justice, are here punished by irons and the stocks. And lastly, to complete the similarity between this and other religious communities, it must be observed that the moment an Indian is baptized, the effect is the same as if he had pronounced a vow for life. If he escapes to reside with his relations in the independent villages, he is summoned three times to return; if he refuses, the missionaries apply to the governor, who sends soldiers to seize him in the midst of his family and conduct him to the mission, where he is condemned to receive a certain number of lashes with the whip. As these people are at war with their neighbors, they can never escape to a distance greater than twenty or thirty leagues. …
The slightest embezzlement [of grain] is punished by the whip, though it seldom happens
that they expose themselves to the danger. These punishments are adjudged by Indian magistrates, called caciques. There are three in each mission, chosen by the people from among those whom the missionaries have not excluded. However, to give a proper notion of the magistracy, we must observe that these caciques are like the overseers of a plantation: passive beings, blind performers of the will of their superiors. Their principal functions consist in serving as beadles in the church, to maintain order and the appearance of attention. …
The converted Indians have preserved all the ancient customs which their new religion does not prohibit. They have the same huts, the same games, and the same clothes. …
The missionaries, persuaded from their prejudices and perhaps from their experience that the reason of these men is scarcely ever developed, consider this a just motive for treating them like children, and admit only a very small number to the communion. …The plan pursued by these missionaries is little calculated to remove this state of ignorance, in which everything is directed to the recompense of another life, while the most usual arts, even the surgery of our villages, are not exercised. Many children perish in consequence of hernias, which the slightest skill would cure …
This government is a true theocracy for the Indians, who believe that their superiors
have immediate and continual communication with God … by virtue of this opinion, the
holy fathers live in the midst of the villages with the greatest security. Their doors are not
shut, even in the night.
Document 4
1797 Military Interrogation of San Francisco Indians
In the summer of 1797 Governor Borica himself authorized an expedition to the Francisco Bay to try to bring back some of the Indians who had fled from San. Francisco. The sortie was led by Pedro Amador, and it was successful in capturing a number of Saclan and Huchuin people. They were tried at the presidio of San Francisco. What follows are excerpts from their interrogations, when they were asked why they had fled the mission.
…Tiburcio: He testified that after his wife and daughter died, on five separate occasions Father Danti ordered him whipped because he was crying. For these reasons he fled. …
Macario: He testified that he fled because his wife and one child had died, no other reason than that.
Magín: He testified that he left due to his hunger and because they had put him in the stocks when he was sick, on orders from the alcalde
Magno: He declared that he had run away because, his son being sick, he …
Ostano: He testified that his motive for having fled was that his wife, one child, and two brothers had died, and because he had fought with another Indian who had been directing their work group.
Román: He testified that he left because his wife and a son had gone back to their land, because of the many whippings, and because he did not have anyone to feed him.
Claudio: He declares that he fled because he was continually fighting with his brother-in-law Casimiro and because the alcalde Valeriano was clubbing him every time he turned around, and when he was sick, this same Valeriano made him go to work.
José Manuel: He testifies that when they went to bring wood from the moutains, Raymundo ordered them to bring him water. When the declarant wouldn’t do it, this same Raymundo hit him with a heavy cane, rendering one hand useless. He showed his hand. It was a little puffed up but had movement. That was his reason for having left the mission.
Homobono: He testifies that his motive for fleeing was that his brother had died on the other shore, and when he cried for him at the mission they whipped him. Also, the alcalde Valeriano hit hiim with a heavy cane for having gone to look for mussels at the beach with Raymundo’s permission.
Malquíedes: He declares that he had no more reason for fleeing than that he went to visit his mother, who was on the other shore.
Liborato:He testifies that he left because his mother, two brothers, and three nephews died, all of hunger. So that he would not also die
of hunger, he fled.
Migilo:He declared that his motive for fleeing was that Lorenzo, who had been at the house of La Sargenta, took him along with him.
Nicolás: He says that he ran away only because his father had died. He had no other motive.
Timoteo: He declares that the alcalde Luis came to get him while he was feeling ill and whipped him, After that, Father Antonio hit him with a heavy cane. For those reasons he fled.
Milán: He declared that he was working all day in the tannery without any food for either himself, his wife, or his child. One afternoon after he left work he went to look for clams to feed his family. Father Dantí whipped him. The next day he fled to the other shore, where his wife and child died.
Patabo: He says that he fled just because his wife and children died and he had no one to take care of him.
Orencio: He declared that his father had gone several times with a little niece of his to get a ration of meat. Father Dantí never gave it to him and always hit him with a cudgel. Because his niece died of hunger, he ran away.
Toribio: He stated that the motive for his having fled was that he was always very hungry, and that he went away together with his uncle.
López: He explained that his reason for having run away was the following: he went one dy over the the presidioto look for something to eat. Upon returning to the mission, he went to get his ration, but Father Dantí did not want to give it to him, saying that he should go to the countryside to eat herbs.
Magno: He declared that he had run away because, his son being sick, he took care of him and was therefore unable to go out to work. As a result he was given no ration and his son died of hunger.
Próspero: He declared that he had gone one night to the lagoon to hunt ducks for food. For this Father Antonio Danti ordered him stretched out and beaten. Then, the following week he was whipped again for having gone out on a paseo. For these reasons he fled.
Patabo: He says that he fled just because his wife and children died and he had no one to take care of him. …
Having concluded the preceding declarations that were legally gathered and which follow the testimony of the interpreters, and in the belief that they represent the truth, I and my assistants sign it at the San Francisco Presidio on August 12, 1797.
Document 5
San Francisco one Hundred Years Ago, The diary of the Russian explorer Kotzebue, who came to California in 1816 and observed life at the Mission San Francisco
Early on September 20, 1816 (old style, October 2), we came within sight of the coast of New California. The land we first saw was what is known as Point Reyes, to the north of San Francisco…The presidio of San Francisco is about one marine mile from the fort and on the same side; it is square in form and has two gates which are constantly guarded by a considerable company of men. The buildings have windows on the side towards the interior court only. The presidio is occupied by ninety Spanish soldiers, a commandant, a lieutenant, a commissary, and a sergeant. Most of these are married. The men and women are tall and well built. Very few of the soldiers have married Indians. They are all good horsemen and two of them can easily cope with fifty natives. Two leagues to the southeast of the presidio and on the southern shore of the harbour is the Mission of San Francisco, which makes a fair-sized village. The mission church is large and is connected with the house of the missionaries, which is plain and reasonably clean and well kept. The mission always has a guard of three or four soldiers from the presidio. The village is inhabited by fifteen hundred Indians; there they are given protection, clothing, and an abundance of food. In return, they cultivate the land for the community. Corn, wheat, beans, peas, and potatoes – in a word, all kinds of produce – are to be found in the general warehouse. By authority of the superior, a general cooking of food takes place, at a given hour each day, in the large square in the middle of the village; each family comes there for its ration which is apportioned with regard to the number of its members. They are also given a certain quantity of raw provisions. Two or three families occupy the same house. In their free time, the Indians work in gardens that are given them; they raise therein onions, garlic, cantaloupes, watermelons, pumpkins, and fruit trees. The products belong to them and they can dispose of them as they see fit.
In winter, hands of Indians come from the mountains to be admitted to the mission, but the greater part of them leave in the spring. They do not like the life at the mission. They find it irksome to work continually and to have everything supplied to them in abundance. In their mountains, they live a free and independent, albeit a miserable, existence. Rats, insects, and snakes, – all these serve them for food; roots also, although there are few that are edible, so that at every step they are almost certain to find something to appease their hunger. They are too unskillful and lazy to hunt. They have no fixed dwellings; a rock or a bush affords sufficient protection for them from every vicissitude of the weather. After several months spent in the missions, they usually begin to grow fretful and thin, and they constantly gaze with sadness at the mountains which they can see in the distance. Once or twice a year the missionaries permit those Indians upon whose return they believe they can rely to visit their own country, but it often happens that few of these return; some, on the other hand, bring with them new recruits to the mission.
The Indian children are more disposed to adopt the mission life. They learn to make a coarse cloth from sheep’s wool for the community. I saw twenty looms that were constantly in operation. Other young Indians are instructed in various trades by the missionaries. There is a house at the mission in which some two hundred and fifty women – the widows and daughters of dead Indians – reside. They do spinning. This house also shelters the wives of Indians who are out in the country by order of the fathers. They are placed there at the request of the Indians, who are exceedingly jealous, and are taken out again when their husbands return. The fathers comply with such requests in order to protect the women from mischief, and they watch over this establishment with the greatest vigilance.
On Sundays and holidays they celebrate divine service. All the Indians of both sexes, without regard to age, are obliged to go to church and worship. Children brought up by the superior, fifty of whom are stationed around him, assist him during the service which they also accompany with the sound of musical instruments. These are chiefly drums, trumpets, tabors, and other instruments of the same class. It is by means of their noise that they endeavour to stir the imagination of the Indians and to make men of these savages. It is, indeed, the only means of producing an effect upon them. When the drums begin to beat they fall to the ground as if they were half dead. None dares to move; all remain stretched upon the ground without making the slightest movement until the end of the service, and, even then, it is necessary to tell them several times that the mass is finished. Armed soldiers are stationed at each corner of the church. After the mass, the superior delivers a sermon in Latin to his flock.
On Sunday, when the service is ended, the Indians gather in the cemetery, which is in front of the mission house, and dance. Half of the men adorn themselves with feathers and with girdles ornamented with feathers and with bits of shell that pass for money among them, or they paint their bodies with regular lines of black, red, and white. Some have half their bodies (from the head downward) daubed with black, the other half red, and the whole crossed with white lines. Others sift the down from birds on their hair. The men commonly dance six or eight together, all making the same movements and all armed with spears. Their music consists of clapping the hands, singing, and the sound made by striking split sticks together which has a charm for their ears; this is finally followed by a horrible yell that greatly resembles the sound of a cough accompanied by a whistling noise. The women dance among themselves, but without making violent movements.
Document 6
Excepts from Interrogatorio (Questionnaire) that the Spanish Government sent to the priests of Mission San Miguel Arcangel. In 1813.
“The Population of this Mission is divided into three classes: — a) The two Missionary Fathers, who are Europeans; —b) the soldiers of the garrison, the mayordomo, and their families, who are Spanish Americans; — c) the Indians, who are natives of the district of the Mission.”…
“The neophytes of this Mission speak four idioms or languages: a) that of San Antonio, which is reputed the principal one; b) that of the seashore, which is the one spoken by those collected on the sea-coast; c) the Tulareno, which is spoken in the Tulares region; d) and in the fourth place that spoken to the south of the Mission. As yet they understand little Castilian, and that much, thanks to the efforts of the Missionary Fathers.”
“The little boys of the Mission in a few months learn anything, as reading in Spanish or Latin, and learn to read from manuscripts, to sing the plain as well as figured music. Their ancestors had no idea whatever of paper or its equivalent.”
“It seems that charity is the principal virtue of these natives, because we have seen innumerable times that whoever, Indian or white, reaches their huts finds the table prepared, and in the same charity the women excel.”
“It is undeniable that the Indians have their healers, who apply to the sick the simple juice of various roots, bark, and leaves of various plants, the names of which I do not know. They make use of thermal waters for various skin diseases and for rheumatism. They also have recourse to bleeding, which is effected simply by scarifying the affected parts with a flint and sucking the wound. This bleeding usually has bad effects so as to cost the life of many. The froth of the thermal waters, which are three leagues to the south of the Mission, together with soap-root, serves them as an excellent purging.
The dominant infirmity is the Galico [syphilis], which sends them to the grave quickly; for it has been experienced that in the first years we had more births than deaths, afterwards as many deaths as births; but at present there are four deaths to three births. For this malady I do not believe they have any effective remedy. I have experienced that the Indian who has seen anyone cured by means of our remedies, not only has no repugnance to taking the medicine, but asks for it; and so, if there were a physician or surgeon at the Mission, many would recover.”
In their pagan state they divided as we do, the year into spring, summer, fall and winter. They had no calendars. Half an hour after sunrise, a little more or less, having taken their breakfast of atole, the neophytes assemble in the church to hear holy Mass, during which they recite the catechism or Doctrina in their language. From the church they go to their homes, take up their implements and work till half past eleven. Then they take their meal, which consists of boiled wheat, corn, peas, beans. Then they rest till two o’clock, in winter till three at which time they go to work at their tasks till an hour before sunset. They then take their supper of atole as in the morning, return to church to recite the Doctrina or catechism, and sing the Alabado or the Salve, or Adoro te, Santa Cruz. Having finished the function of the church, they return to their homes. This is the daily exercise. On Saturday from 25 to 30 cattle are slaughtered, the meat of which is distributed to the Indians in the Mission.
The money of the Indians have been and are beads, which they now loan without profit. In their pagan state they would loan, for instance, a real’s worth of beads, which would increase every day to the whole value, so he who offered the loan remained in the hands of the lender. This custom was practiced by the Indians east of the Mission. They had no other contracts than the loan and sale.
They are much inclined to music, and, in time, they play with facility and perfection any instrument. In their pagan state they had no musical instrument other than what hardly merited the name of flute. For the rest, they sing what the missionary teaches them, as was already said.
The men dress in cotton and serge sufficiently to appear with decency. The women wear cotton and petticoats, and all wear blankets. Their outer dress is of wool, either blue, or white and blue, at least mixed black and white (gray).
Their lack of clothing was such, and the poverty of these poor things, which I saw in the Tulares about 28 leagues from the Mission that many women are without more decency on their whole body than a small apron of tules hanging down the front and rear held together by a sort of belt. Some wore two after the same manner. Those more particular covered themselves with tanned deer skins, all that the decency of their sex demanded.
Document 7
Pope Beatifies Junipero Serra
September 26, 1988|WILLIAM D. MONTALBANO | Times Staff Writer
VATICAN CITY — As spiritual pageantry blended with pilgrims’ prayers, Pope John Paul II welcomed an 18th-Century Spanish friar known as “the Apostle of California” to the blessed inner circle of the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday.
The Pope solemnly beatified Franciscan Father Junipero Serra, founder of the California mission system, hailing him as “a shining example of Christian virtue and the missionary spirit.”
To the applause of several hundred Californians among 30,000 worshipers in St. Peter’s Square on a splendid September morning, the controversial missionary became “Blessed Junipero Serra.”
He is now one step short of sainthood.
“All we need for canonization is one more miracle, today or hereafter,” said Father Noel F. Moholy, a Franciscan priest from San Francisco who has advanced Serra’s spiritual cause through the Vatican bureaucracy for three decades.
With files of cardinals and bishops flanking the flower-decked altar before St. Peter’s Cathedral, John Paul also beatified five other Roman Catholics who led lives of “heroic virtue.” One of them, Jesuit Miguel Pro, executed by a Mexican firing squad in 1927, studied in Los Gatos, Calif., while in exile from a violently anti-clerical Mexican government.
“A moving and emotional experience,” retired Cardinal Timothy Manning of Los Angeles said. “Father Pro was very close to us Californians, and for Father Serra, today marked the climax of a 200-year wait.”
John Paul sat relaxed and in fine voice upon a white and gold upholstered throne to receive the formal appeals for beatification from bishops representing the candidates: three New World missionaries, an Italian parish priest, a Sicilian cardinal and a Spanish lay woman.
Serra’s beatification had been opposed by some Indian groups in California critical of the treatment Indians received under the mission system. Vatican researchers, however, who painstakingly examined the historical record as part of the beatification process, came away convinced that Serra was more champion of the Indians than their oppressor.
“There would have been no beatification if there was any shred of doubt,” said Msgr. Robert J. Sarno, an official of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
Noting Serra’s birth in Spain and his early missionary experience in Mexico, Bishop Thaddeus Shubsda of Monterey recalled his establishment of nine California missions beginning in San Diego in 1769. “Always go forward, never go back,” was Serra’s motto, Shubsda told the Pope in a brief address begun in Spanish and ended in English.
As the Pope rose to reply to the six bishops, the giant square erupted with fluttering flags and banners waved by groups of pilgrims who had come to cheer hometown favorites on the road to sainthood. Off to the Pope’s right came cheers for Serra from delegations of California pilgrims from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Monterey and Sacramento.
“In California is my life, and there, God willing, I hope to die,” Serra once wrote.
He died in Carmel on Aug. 28, 1784. Henceforth, by papal decree, California Catholics will observe each Aug. 28 as the Feast of Junipero Serra.
The Pope portrayed Serra as a defender of the Indian peoples among whom he traveled continually to evangelize.
“He also had to admonish the powerful not to abuse and exploit the poor and the weak,” the Pope said.
From his seat beside the majestically adorned altar, Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony was moved by a sense of history as the Pope celebrated a Mass of rejoicing.
“The whole history of California seemed to flash before my eyes; especially the coming of the Gospel and all it means,” said Mahony. “And to have Father Pro on the same day. . . . What it cost to proclaim the Gospel!”
Document 8
Pope Francis canonizes Father Junipero Serra, saying he defended Native Americans
Pope Francis arrives for the canonization Mass for Junipero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
Noah Bierman Contact Reporter , September 23, 2015
Pope Francis called Father Junipero Serra a defender of “the dignity of the native community,” as the first pope from the Americas canonized the 18th century missionary known as the Apostle of California on Wednesday while celebrating his first Mass in the United States.
The ceremony to name a new Catholic saint, the first to take place on U.S. soil, came nearly 250 years after the Spanish Franciscan friar redefined the culture and history of the far West.
Serra evangelized indigenous people – sometimes with harsh methods – and established the church mission system that defined the Spanish colonial era in California.
In a sermon to 25,000 people crowded outside the ornate Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic church in the country, Francis addressed the missionary’s controversial legacy by portraying him as a protector, not an oppressor, of early Californians.
Serra “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it,” the Argentine-born pope said, speaking in Spanish from an altar outside the basilica. “Mistreatment and wrongs that today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt they cause in the lives of many people,” he said.
Serra’s critics did not organize any protests at the canonization ceremony. Some opponents said there was no use in trying to sway the church or the immensely popular pope at this point.
Before Francis spoke, the crowd roared as the glass-topped “popemobile” weaved among them on large paths. The 78-year-old pontiff took two laps along the main thoroughfare that separated the media from assigned seats, waving fitfully as the throng rose and cheered.
Many had waited hours in the open sun to see him, and medical teams rushed to help several who passed out. Large choirs performed liturgical and gospel music before the ceremony, shifting effortlessly from Aaron Copland to psalms.
Pope Francis canonized the 18th century missionary known as the Apostle of California on Wednesday while he celebrated his first Mass in the United States.
For all its historical implications, the canonization Mass came hours after Francis made his first formal visit to the White House and challenged Americans of all faiths to address the modern problems of global warming, illegal immigration and the conflict over traditional families and cultural values.
“Climate change is a problem that can no longer be left to a future generation,” Francis told 11,000 people who gathered on the White House’s South Lawn for his welcoming ceremony. “When it comes to the care of our ‘common home,’ we are living at a critical moment of history.”
In a later meeting with U.S. bishops, Francis acknowledged “the pain of recent years” resulting from the church’s sexual abuse scandal, a poignant reminder during his six-day visit to Washington, New York and Philadelphia that many American Catholics have yet to forgive the church.
The nation’s capital, normally blase when world leaders visit, has been electrified by the arrival of Francis, who is making his first appearance in the United States. After dire warnings of the potential for historic traffic tie-ups, many downtown streets were eerily empty midmorning as people stayed home or took public transit to work.
One politician sought to nominate Francis for a Nobel Prize, and many tried to capture his glow. A bus driver sang gospel music while ferrying visitors to see the pope.
After the pontiff left the White House, people locked in dense crowds on the National Mall cried, snapped photos and bragged with certainty that he had locked eyes with them as he rolled along in his popemobile.
“He is our pope,” said Miriam Villatoro, a 40-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who cleans houses, as she stood for more than hour in line to watch Francis deliver Mass and canonize Serra. “He is the one we’re waiting for.”
Villatoro, who brought her two sons and her husband, was especially thrilled that Francis would speak in Spanish, the native language for her and millions of other Latinos who constitute the fastest-growing segment in the American Catholic Church.
“It’s like the voice of the immigrants,” she said.
Pope John Paul II beatified Serra in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on Sept. 25, 1988. Serra, he said at the time, “sowed the seeds of Christian faith amid the momentous changes wrought by the arrival of European settlers in the New World.”
In his homily Wednesday, Francis painted Serra as “the embodiment of ‘a church that goes forth.’”
“He was excited about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing the particular customs and ways of life,” he said. “He learned how to bring to birth and nurture God’s life in the faces of everyone he met.”
Lesa Truxaw, director for worship for the Diocese of Orange, flew in from Costa Mesa. She wore a large crucifix made of gems and carried a card depicting Father Serra beside the mission he set up in San Juan Capistrano.
“We are No. 7,” she said proudly, alluding to the nine missions Serra founded in California after he arrived near San Diego in 1769. They were primarily designed to convert natives to the Catholic faith.
The church went on to establish 12 more from San Diego to San Francisco. Serra’s name can be found on streets, schools, parks, a freeway and statues up and down the state.
But to many Native Americans, Serra is a symbol of the mission system’s oppression.
Converted natives were kept separate from those who had not embraced Christianity, and some missions flogged and imprisoned those who tried to leave.
Critics say his legacy includes forced labor that supported the missions, which were crucial to Spain’s ambitions in the region. Spanish troops garrisoned near some missions were blamed for spreading syphilis and other diseases that devastated local communities.
Serra’s defenders say he must be viewed as flawed but depict him as a devout theologian who loved the people with whom he shared the gospel. They also point to efforts he made to protect natives from rape and other depredations by Spanish soldiers.
“He was a man of his times,” Truxaw said. “There is controversy. I don’t think we can whitewash that. I hope that, the indigenous, we can reach out to them and heal the hurt.”
Serra’s remains are buried under the sanctuary floor at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Document 9
Sainthood of Junípero Serra Reopens Wounds of Colonialism in California
By LAURA M. HOLSONSEPT. 29, 2015
Visitors at the statue of Junípero Serra at the Carmel Mission in California on Monday. Father Serra was canonized last week by Pope Francis. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. — A group of teenagers huddled at the foot of a statue of Junípero Serra at the Carmel Mission on Monday, there to pay homage to the Spaniard who helped colonize California in the 18th century. Only a day earlier, vandals had toppled the six-foot figure and doused it with paint, writing “saint of genocide” on a nearby triangle of stone. But now the statue was upright and scrubbed clean for visitors.
Catholic Church officials said the vandalism was the first of its kind at the mission, timed to Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, during which he elevated Father Serra to sainthood at a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The attack also came just hours before parishioners planned to honor Father Serra, a revered former Carmel resident whose celebrity attracts thousands of tourists each year to this quiet hamlet along Monterey Bay.
The police continue to investigate what they have called a hate crime. And the episode threatens to inflame a decades-old wound between the Roman Catholic Church and Native Americans who contend that Father Serra was more oppressor than saint. Historians agree that he forced Native Americans to abandon their tribal culture and convert to Christianity, and that he had them whipped and imprisoned and sometimes worked or tortured to death.
In the vandalism case, there are so far no suspects, and no group has claimed responsibility, said an investigator on the case, Sgt. Luke Powell of the city’s police force.
A security camera that might have identified the intruders was not working when the vandalism occurred, Sergeant Powell said. A private guard hired to patrol the grounds told the police that he had not seen or heard a disturbance. And to complicate matters, Sergeant Powell said, parishioners and others walked through the crime scene, making even the paint cans left by the vandals useless as evidence.
Visitors and mission representatives sought healing this week, while Native American tribal members who opposed Father Serra’s sainthood sought to distance themselves from the desecration, fearing a backlash. Pope Francis, after all, had praised the missionary as “one of the founding fathers of the United States,” someone who sacrificed a great deal to spread the gospel of Christianity in America. And as America’s first Latino saint, Father Serra holds particular appeal in this state, where Latinos are the dominant ethnic group.
A church official praised “a sacred space to both Christian people and Native Americans.” Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Not everyone is a fan.
“I am against Serra being made a saint,” said Louise J. Miranda Ramirez, tribal chairwoman of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation, which represents Native American tribal members from the coast of Central and Northern California. “But just because we objected to the canonization, that doesn’t mean we did it.”
The Rev. Bob Brady, a Franciscan priest who lives in Oakland and attended Mass at the mission on Monday, said one of the priests there had described the vandalism “as a punch in the gut.” He added of the vandals, “This came from someone’s pain, and they need to know of our forgiveness.”
Father Serra was born in 1713 on the island of Majorca and came to this area in 1768, wielding his influence not only to convert Native Americans to Christianity, but also to bolster Spain’s economic and political interests. In 1770, he founded Carmel Mission, the second of California’s 21 missions, which served as centers of cattle and grain production in addition to being hubs for the expansion of Catholicism. Father Serra’s motto, which is printed on water bottles and other souvenirs sold in the gift shop, was, “Always go forward and never turn back.”
Most Californians agree that colonization came at a price. Thousands of Native Americans died after being exposed to European diseases. Those who survived were forced to give up tribal customs and submit to the demands of their Christian overlords — from observing rites like baptism to enduring physical abuse and working conditions that resembled slavery.
For many Native Americans, Ms. Miranda Ramirez said, the colonization of California was tantamount to genocide. Villagers were rounded up, shackled or flogged if they failed to follow the missionaries’ Catholic code. Steven W. Hackel, a history professor at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of “Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father,” wrote in his book that the newly canonized saint was both a visionary and an imperialist whose attitudes reflected the era in which he lived.
The spread of Christianity in California was as much a governing force as spiritual practice. According to the website of the California Missions Resource Center, Spanish conquerors had promising results backing missionaries who settled areas in the American Southwest and the Río de la Plata region of Latin America. Missionaries taught school and farming and imposed what they believed to be societal order.
During a trip to Bolivia in July, Pope Francis, who was born in Argentina, spoke of the subjugation of local cultures by Catholics, saying, “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.” But that has done little to sway the attitudes of Native Americans here.
The Carmel Mission, established in 1770, was the second of California’s 21 missions. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Last Wednesday, several hundred people gathered at 1 p.m. in the mission courtyard to watch the canonization Mass on a live broadcast from Washington. As the pope named Father Serra a saint, bells clanged from a tower. Twenty feet away, about two dozen Native Americans had gathered in a cemetery containing the remains of forebears who had worked at the mission, their graves adorned by rows of stones, wooden crosses and plate-size abalone shells.
Jewel Gentry, the California missions coordinator for the Diocese of Monterey, said the tribal gatherers were welcome. “It’s a sacred space to both Christian people and Native Americans,” he said.
But in the early hours of Saturday, not long before the parishioners planned to celebrate Father Serra’s canonization with a Mass and barbecue, vandals climbed over one of the low stone walls that flank the mission, Sergeant Powell said. There, they found an unlocked utility closet containing buckets of dark green and eggshell-colored paint. After toppling and painting the statue, the vandals wandered over to a sign with Father Serra’s name on it and wrote: “This man is responsible for genocide. Greed is evil.” (The sign has been removed, Sergeant Powell said.) Paint was also splattered on the basilica’s front doors and on two Christian headstones in the graveyard.
The vandalism was discovered when a priest went to open the basilica about 7 a.m. for an early Mass. According to a spokeswoman for the mission, priests at the morning Masses asked parishioners to help clean the courtyard and posted a note on Facebook seeking other volunteers. Townspeople brought sponges, buckets, cleanser and a pressure washer to remove as much of the paint as possible before 11 a.m., when the Mass to celebrate the canonization was scheduled to start. The evidence was mostly gone by Monday, except for random spatters and a patch of dry paint on the ground below the statue.
“It was devastating,” said Rudy Rosales, a former tribal chairman of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation, who is Catholic and tends the Native American graves in the mission cemetery. “I can’t think of someone doing this. Three-quarters of our tribe is Catholic.” He said he neither supported nor opposed the canonization of Father Serra, although it has angered some in his tribe. “I’ve had Indians call me a Mission-token Indian,” he said, adding, “Everyone has been through so much.”
On Monday, the paint splatters in the dirt were a momentary curiosity for the teenage pilgrims, students from Thomas More School in San Jose. They formed two lines and walked into the basilica singing “Salve Regina,” their lilting voices reverberating against the walls. Boys and girls, some wearing lace veils and carrying rosary beads, whispered Hail Marys, while a priest blessed them with a relic, a splinter of the coffin Father Serra was buried in.
The Rev. Gerard Hogan, the school chaplain, said of the vandalism, “We were sad to see that.” He wondered, “If you sense an injustice, why would you seek an injustice as payback?”
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