CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Daily News
By City News Service
POSTED: 02/01/15
LOS ANGELES >> An advocacy group representing Native Americans said will hold a demonstration in downtown Los Angeles today to protest Pope Francis’s plans to canonize Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Spanish priest who is both revered and reviled for founding nine of California’s 21 missions.
The Mexica Movement is an indigenous rights educational organization that says it represents native peoples on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We attempted to meet with Archbishop (Jose) Gomez over the proposed canonization of Junipero Serra. He refused to meet with us or to return our phone call,” the group said in a statement. “He does not care about the truth of the crimes and immorality of this white supremacist priest.”
Gomez, who, as Archbishop of Los Angeles heads the nation’s biggest Roman Catholic archdiocese, has hailed the pope’s decision to confer sainthood on Serra, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1988. Gomez called Serra one of his “spiritual heroes” and said the pope’s decision to canonize him is a “gift to California and the Americas.”
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