The following comes from a Feb. 1 story in the L.A. Times.
Hoisting a sign depicting Archbishop Jose Gomez with a toothbrush mustache and a swastika medallion, a dozen people gathered outside Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown to protest the proposed canonization of Father Junipero Serra.
Olin Tezcatlipoca, director of the Mexica Movement, an indigenous-rights group, said Serra and the California mission system he founded were responsible for the Spanish “genocide” of native peoples. Gomez, who heads the Los Angeles Archdiocese and has called Serra one of his “spiritual heroes,” refused to meet to discuss the group’s objections, Tezcatlipoca said.
“Serra set up forced labor camps, death camps,” Tezcatlipoca said as the group gathered in front of the Father Serra statue across from Olvera Street for the short march to the gates of the cathedral. “Women and children were raped the same way as the pedophile priests, and the church has hidden that.”
A spokeswoman for the archdiocese said she didn’t know of the Mexica Movement, which has taken part in local immigration and other protests since the 1990s, and would have no comment.
Serra’s complex legacy has sharply divided people in and out of the Catholic Church since the Pope Francis’ surprise announcement last month saying that he planned to grant the missionary’s long-sought sainthood.
Although schoolchildren are taught Serra and his order of Franciscans created a chain of agricultural and livestock centers filled with industrious workers, the Spanish also flogged natives who disobeyed, captured those who tried to escape and decimated villages with their European diseases.
Serra’s supporters said he fought against enslaving the Indians and sought mercy for native rebels after an uprising at the San Diego Mission in 1775. Father Ken Laverone, a Sacramento priest who has helped lead the West Coast Franciscans’ campaign for Serra’s canonization, said critics are trying to judge an 18th century man through a 21st century lens.
“To blame Serra specifically is putting the blame in the wrong place,” Laverone said. “He considered Native Americans as human beings.”
Protesters, whose signs also included an etching of Serra with swastikas added to his halo, said the same rationale could be used to excuse Hitler’s crimes.
“Didn’t they have the Ten Commandments then? Did they teach the golden rule?” Tezcatlipoca said….
The Homo-Nazi Reich under Ernst Rohm & his Homosex Terrorist ‘SA’ Storm Troopers never seems to get the same analysis by the lamesteam media as other attempts to trash the Catholic Church…
But given that both Rohm & his syphilitic prostitute protege hitler were coprophile ephebophiles – they tend to get passed over in favor of blaming the Catholic Church – and of course Ignoring others who target it, not unlike they so gaily enjoy:
SEE
Dachau: ‘the largest cemetery of Catholic priests in the world’
Catholic World News 2/3/15 https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=23909
2,579 Catholic priests, seminarians, and religious were deported from across Europe to the Dachau concentration camp, according to a newly published French book.
1,034 of them, 868 of whom were Polish, died there.
Here is a more complete and accurate picture of gays under Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Holocaust
This is tired old material. There is no proof of the things these people allege. Fr. Serra and his padres were very good to the Indians, devoting their lives to bringing them the Catholic faith and improving their standard of living. Controversy makes for good press, and the media is hostile to Christianity and Western culture, so I suspect we’ll continue to see these stories.
What was good and holy, is now evil and disgusting. It is doublespeak. If it were not for the missionaries, more of the world would be PAGAN than it is now. The Church once saved souls for Christ, but now, since everyone is saved, there is no more need to evangelize. This is tragic, and it goes against everything the Catholic Church stood for until Vatican II.If you read non politically correct books, you will learn that many of the Indians were cannibals, practiced human sacrifices, and were not friendly to the environment. Today, though, it is taught that the White man is bad, evil, and horrible. Sure there were some abuses, but just stop with the silly nonsense, and let Junipero Serra be canonized.
Father Karl,
I can’t say I know much about Junipero Serra. The question depends on HOW the Indians were converted.
Coercive converstion is completely at odds with the entirety ot Christ’s ministry on earth. At the extreme, “convert or die” is blatantly immoral. It follows that “conversion” is not necessarily an unqualified good.
It matters now the conversion is done.
JonJ, we do know that the missions were typically founded by small groups of about one dozen individuals which included the padres. The natives in California did not live in city centers, such as the Aztecs or Mayans, but rather in very small communities of a few families a piece. In Southern California, these families slept in small grass huts and hunted rodents and other small game. They also gathered what they could find in the way of wild herbs and berries. Anyway, I am sure the natives were attracted to the Missionaries with the skills they possessed, including their knowledge and mastery of animal husbandry and crop growing and cultivation abilities, things which were apparently foreign to these poor human beings.
Fr. Serra was a saint, in all but formal recognition. It is good that Abp. Gomez calles Serra one of his “spiritual heroes”. Certainly there were rough spots, but what Serra did was bring the Faith to CA indians, something that they would have lacked without his bravery.
And, isn’t that the true issue? History Fascists demand that Indian and all “Thrid World” cultures were inherently good and complete. In their view, European intervention, for any reason, was unnecessary and genocidal. Of course, they will have this view of history; they are pagans, and are contrary to religion.
The question of can the innocent pagan gain salvation has long been a topic of Catholic debate. But, what Fr. Serra did was to jump-start the individual Indian’s opportunity to know the True Faith, and to better attain salvation.
Today, sad to say, it is likely that most Catholic clergy would oppose any intervention in an unspoiled Indian culture. In this way, such clergy share a sense of God and the afterlife the same as the comical protestors in LA.
Fr. Serra should be canonized. Certainly, if there is talk of canonizing Abp. Romero, and of making all of Catholicism understood through the concept of “Liberation Theology” (Aside to Audience: “And how crazy is that”?), then there is more than enough room for a good old missionary priest, who brought Catholicism to the New World.
Fr. Junípero Serra should be canonized. His missions civilized Baja and Alta California and gave the natives the highest possible gift: our Caholic religion.
If these migrant malcontents are unhappy with the results they can go back to eating their hearts out.
There’s another story to this that you don’t hear very much. At the time the California missions were built, Spain was a declining world power. Britain was a rising power, and they were becoming very concerned about the number of Russian settlements being established on the West Coast. They told the Spaniards to do something to stop it, so they commissioned Father Serra to establish the mission system to prevent the Russians from moving further South. I should research the history of this to make sure it’s not just another urban legend.
You are correct, “Bob Bugiada” you need to do research on this supposition. In fact, facially, this position is overtly anti-Faith: that is, the belief it espouses is, “no one would actually go to the New World in order to proselytize the local Indians; too dangerous, to arduous, blah, blah, blah.”
In your research you will surely find that the Franciscans of the time, and Fr. Serra in particular, were overtly religious and believers of Christ’s Great Commandment of converting the world. In fact, many men of religion at that time were believers in the need to be missionaries to the world.
Certainly Spain and England were enemies and their competition, along with that of France, for world power, defined the world for centuries. Did Fr. Serra encourage “loyalty” to Spain, along with preaching the Faith? Interesting question, but not the primary motivator here. Certainly, Fr. Serra needed a benefactor to get to CA, and that was Spain, but he was far more than a foot-soldier in different clothing. Good luck on your research; look forward to learning what you find.
Notice the use of the smear-word, “Death Camps”, vs. Serra and the Catholic Church—when the development of such “camps” was integral to both Nazi and to Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist-Castro-Kim Song Very Il Socialism.
Lenin took over the Tsarist system of such camps and perfected these historic crimes against humanity: perhaps 2 million killed. Hitler, perhaps 10 million? Stalin, 30-40 million (cf Simon S. Montefiore, In The Court of the Red Tsar); Mao, easily topped 50 million. Saddam Hussein modeled his terror-state on Stalin and his rape-chambers and torture-chambers. But all the rage is against the California Mission system and Serra. Convenient.
But at Fatima, Our Lady warned that Russia would spread its errors throughout the world. All for the cause, comrade!
And, by the way, notice how this agit-prop group smears Abp. Gomez with the swastika emblem—when it would be much more appropriate, if you are going to be historically consistent, to use the hammer-and-sickle of the communist movement, with regard to so-called “Death Camps”. But that would be biting the hand that feeds them.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought that to be declared a saint there has to be three verified miracles attributed to the saint candidate, or that the saint candidate was a martyr for the faith. Am I wrong?
You are correct Sarah
Other than martyrs who die for Christ,
God will let us know whom he wants venerated as a Saint via the miracles and other strict requirements.
No one living today has a clue about the un-canonized true Sainthood of someone who lived hundreds of years ago – and that includes the Pope.
Clearly there is controversy surrounding this Priest of the 1700’s.
Let the strict procedures take place – this should not upset those who believe he may be a Saint.
If he is a Saint to be venerated, they should have enough Faith in God that He will make it happen. If he is not a Saint to be venerated, God will take care of that too.
Sarah – there are indeed many ‘paths’ to Sainthood – yet they all lead to the same Trinitarian God. There are also many who have achieved said status in the Eyes of God – who as yet remain unknown to us mere mortals.
Recognition of Sainthood by the living is not like filling out a ‘shopping list’ – although many candidates (and some whose causes did not advance) tended to share certain Good Characteristics in common.
Which is my way of saying that there is no sure formulaic way of living a ‘Saintly’ Life, unless it Starts with The Basics of Faith in Our Lord Jesus, and what sort of Witness we then give to that.
The Witness of St. Charles Lwanga also shows how old and widespread certain Persecutors of the Church and the Flock it seeks to protect have been at following their own sense of Anti-Catholic ‘fun’ – kind of like that which pervades the legislature & courts, if not quite as deceitful & kinky.
SEE:
St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs of Uganda
https://beforeitsnews.com/christian-news/2014/06/st-charles-lwanga-and-companions-martyrs-of-uganda-3-2497400.html
Although his personal life is a hollyweird tinsel town train wreck – Director Mel Gibson has provided two movies that transcend both his acting and his acting out.
Most Catholics know about ‘The Passion of the Christ’ and a good many have seen it. It’s not an easy movie to watch, and a major reason is the profoundly disturbing nature of Gibson’s accurate depiction of Rome and its ‘culture’.
They had Arts & Technology the world still holds as wonders, intermixed with Barbarity seemingly so completely at odds – as to provide a strong warning for the Hubris of our own ‘enlightened’ times.
Gibson’s lesser known work titled ‘Apocalypto’ does much for the ‘new world the Passion did for Rome; in a realistically gritty manner that is also difficult to watch – yet whose seeming paradoxes also mirror our present.
Beyond the irony of Mistaking this Continent for India – The Advanced ‘Indian’ Culture depicted (accurately – if not universally so) by Gibson is as cruel, decadent and evil as anything Rome produced.
But Apocalypto Ends with the arrival of Catholic Missionaries / Spanish Soldiers, who despite different motivations (Souls & Salvation vs. Gold & Power) – proved as powerfully transformative in the Americas as in Europe.
Boatloads of Saints & Sinners (and many in-between) rarely make for consistent stories of their treatment of the locals– but On the Whole I assert that the Catholic Missions did mostly Good Work and often God’s Work – Which Truly Set Them Apart from Predecessors.
J’accuse is all we need to burn people now. Jump on the gate wagon or they will consume you in their hate as well.