The following comes from a July 21 Breitbart article by William Bigelow:
This week, Gov. Jerry Brown, who was once a Jesuit seminarian, asserted that he will block California legislators from attempting to replace the statue of Father Junípero Serra in the National Statuary Hall Collection on Capitol Hill with a statue of astronaut Sally Ride.
Brown told the Catholic News Service, “We’re going to keep his statue in Congress. It’s done as far as I’m concerned.” He lauded the Pope’s scheduled canonization of Serra later this year, calling Serra “California’s first saint,” and adding, “He showed a lot courage. The pope is right in recognizing his sanctity.”
Noting protests by Native Americans claiming Serra had brutalized their ancestors, Brown added:
“There’s been a lot of tragedy, there’s been a lot of suffering, there’s been a lot of prejudice and a lot of misunderstanding on all sides relating to not just native peoples, but African Americans, Chinese, you just name it. And yet through it all California has prospered. So this is the subtle point that sometimes is hard to understand–that tragedy and good and evil often inhere in the same situation. And that doesn’t mean we won’t have our saints. It’s just that we have to understand that saints, like everybody else, are not perfect.”
They may not have been perfect here on earth; but their souls are pearly white in Heaven. They have seen the Beatific Vision! Moon Beam is a great example of a V2 member. Anything goes, even if it is against God’s teachings.
I have always accepted the traditional teaching of the Church, on the meaning and definition, of a true Saint. As it states in all Catechisms– the goal of a Christian’s life, is the full indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, in the soul– and the eternal enjoyment of the Beatific Vision, God, in Heaven. All the Saints have varying degrees of sanctity, also, and all have different merits, and capacities for beholding the eternal Beatific Vision, God, in Heaven. Throughout history, some of the Saints seem to be controversial, as to their true sanctity! Including Fr. Serra! Well, our truest role models, are Christ and His Blessed Mother! But maybe Fr. Serra’s canonization will do some good, regardless.
Other than the Blessed Mother, no human being has ever been or is without sin (perfect).
Even GOD’s chosen 12 Apostles were sinners.
Ted, I’m sorry to correct you, but this is…well…incorrect.
Jesus is without sin, yet true God and true Man.
Well, I guess he’s not all bad.
Jerry Brown not all that bad? Oh, yes he is. It is he who, in his first governorship, brought minor abortion rights into the state by appointing Rose Byrd as state Supreme Court Justice and making Beverley Myers, the head of the state Health Dept. It is he who made an executive decision to require the state taxpayers, rather than the feds, pay for all abortions in California. It is he who has signed the mandatory vaccination bill. It is he who wants to invest millions in building a train to nowhere down through the eastern portion of our state and transfer northern water to So. California. It is he who signed legislation allowing nurse-midwives to perform abortions. Everytime he thinks he needs to improve his image he manages to get the…
This defense is intellectually embarrassing. Was his defense saying that saints are human and that humans can do both good and evil? If so, let us hope that the media had edited out Brown’s actual defense of Fr. Serra. If not, Brown must think the people of California to be morons who will accept any polemic fed to them.
Wow! Something we can praise Jerry Brown for!!
I’m stunned. I liked his Dad but I’ve never been sure about Jerry. But this is something that would make old Pat proud and I’m delighted.
Regardless of the Religious Issue – Father Serra remains historically central to the formation of California and even down to the founding and naming of its largest cities when the state was originally a mostly waterless Desert.
By contrast, like many people who were ‘first’ (for whatever group they allegedly belong to) to do something that others (of different ‘groups’ had already done before, Sally Ride took a Ride on the shuttle, which is no where comparable in Historical Importance to California.
Brown got it right – even if not for the right reasons.
Fork-tongued Brown first praises Serra, then trashes him via third party slander; plays the race card on California history; then offers an impotent political sop to Catholics with the statue bit. And Catholics eat it up. Like shootin’ fish in a barrel.