UNITED STATES
AlterNet
By Richard Kreitner / The Nation September 21, 2015
Earlier this summer, to great fanfare, Pope Francis apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the colonial invasion of the Western Hemisphere and the violent subjugation of its indigenous inhabitants. “Many grave sins were committed against the Native people of America in the name of God,” he told a gathering in Bolivia. “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.”
On the issues of climate change and economic inequality, and to a lesser extent on issues related to sexuality and social mores, the so-called “radical pope” has made immense progress in improving the tone of the Catholic Church’s communications with the rest of the world. He has brought a new relevance to the church by emphasizing the ongoing nature of the exploitation he admitted to and denounced in Bolivia, and by refocusing the notoriously Italocentric institution’s orientation to Latin America and the Global South.
Yet when he visits the United States next week, the pope will commit a grievous and historical error, one for which some super-“radical” pope of the future will have to apologize in turn. On Wednesday, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, Francis will canonize Father Junípero Serra, the founder and most famed symbol of the system of missions in the Spanish colony of Alta California.
Born in Spain, Serra arrived in Spanish-held Mexico in 1749 and quickly set about working for the Inquisition, citing by name several natives who refused to convert to Christianity; they were guilty, he wrote, of “the most detestable and horrible crimes of sorcery, witchcraft and devil worship.” Serra soon gained control of the missions of Baja California, but he found that the native population had already been nearly extinguished by contact with the Spanish. Looking for fresh converts, he led expeditions up the coast into the present-day state of California, where he settled at Monterey and set up ten new missions to spread the gospel through the new land.
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