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It's official: Vatican to canonize missionary Junipero Serra, despite controversy
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Bypassing opposition, the Vatican said missionary Junipero Serra, who walked the length of California to establish religious outposts and evangelize the native population, will be canonized by Pope Francis on Sept. 23 in Washington, D.C. - photo by Mark A. Kellner
Bypassing opposition, the Vatican said Wednesday missionary Junipero Serra, who walked the length of California to establish religious outposts and evangelize the native population, will be canonized by Pope Francis on Sept. 23 in Washington, D.C., during the pontiff's American tour.

"The Vatican's saint-making office has officially given its thumbs up for the Rev. Junipero Serra to be declared a saint four months after Pope Francis announced he would canonize the controversial 18th-century missionary," The Associated Press reported from Rome.

The pending move, which would add Serra, whose name now bears the honorific "Blessed," to the roster of Catholic saints who believers can enlist for intercessory assistance. The canonization is not without its dissenters, however. Some believe Serra was at the vanguard of alleged imperialistic intrusions on native culture.

"To canonize Junipero Serra is to canonize the genocide against us as indigenous people," Citlalli Anahuac, an activist with the Mexica Movement, told KABC-7 television. Anahuac's group has held protests outside the Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles to oppose the move.

"His job was to kill the indigenous people, who we were as a people, and instead revive us as Christians," Anahuac told the station.

At a seminary in Rome on May 2, however, Pope Francis praised Serra and his efforts, the Catholic News Service reported.

The pope "said Blessed Serra, like other Catholic missionaries in the Americas, 'defended the indigenous peoples against abuses by the colonizers.' Referring to the Franciscan missionary as "Fra Junipero," Pope Francis said the Spaniard was motivated by a desire to share the Gospel with the indigenous peoples of the Americas."

Officials of the Los Angeles archdiocese, in a statement to KABC, said Serra was "a holy man who brought the good news of God's love and mercy to the Americas. He was also a strong protector of the Native peoples."

Apparently, Serra's cause was personally championed by Pope Francis, who was born in Argentina and in 2013 became the first Roman Catholic world leader from the western hemisphere.

The Associated Press noted the Vatican's office that handles sainthood matters "didn't even approve a second miracle attributed to Serra's intervention the normal way someone is canonized. Rather, Serra joins several new saints simply declared such by Francis in an equivalent process."
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