Why Is the ‘Radical Pope’ About to Canonize a Priest Who Helped Enslave and Murder Native Americans?

[Warren Stupidity]

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.

...

From their establishment in the late 1760s until Mexico declared independence and secularized them in the 1820s, the California missions formed a network of forced-labor camps and, in effect, slaughterhouses, where the once-vibrant native peoples of California were systematically reduced to mere shadows of their former selves: Under the mission system, the overall indigenous population of Southern California declined by nearly 1,000 every single year.

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-the-radical-pope-about-to-canonize-a-priest-who-helped-enslave-and-murder-native-americans/

[upaloopa]

1. We have two missions near where we live.

Santa Ynez and La Purisima
La Purisima is a state park. In the welcome center there is a lot of history of the mission in displays. They point out that the native people were decimated.
Santa Inez is still a Catholic Church. It has a plaque that tells that the word of Christ was brought to the native people. No other history.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. It's the same story at Mission Santa Barbara

The mission there still serves the city as a church, but most of the grounds have been converted to a museum... a museum celebrating the good work done by the Catholic Church to bring civilization to the heathen Chumash.

I take it you live near Solvang, or up in the Santa Ynez mountains? I've always loved it up there.

[upaloopa]

6. I live in Santa Maria and work in Santa Barbara

I drive on 154 through the Santa Inez Mnts
Cachuma lake is only 18% full due to the drought

[Act_of_Reparation]

7. Sorry to hear that.

I was last there in 2011, I think. My wife and I drove up the coast from Santa Barbara to the waterfall, and then inland to Solvang. We took 154 over the San Marcos Pass and back into Santa Barbara. Cachuma was packed with tourists. It's a hell of a pretty place up there. I hope the winter brings you some good rains.

[randys1]

2. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

[Cartoonist]

3. That's not what I heard

“Many grave sins were committed against the Native people of America in the name of God,” he told a gathering in Bolivia.

----
I've been told it was nothing but a land grab, and religion had absolutely nothing to do with it. Not only that, but I was accused of being arrogant for saying otherwise due to my white guilt.

[Igel]

4. In a system where there's not a distinction between church and state,

you have them mixed.

More land = more chances for new converts. More power means more ability to fight those that rolled back Xianity at sword- and gun-point.

One has to remember that the New World "conquest" came immediately after a centuries-long oppressive occupation of Iberia was finally rolled back. Attacks in the Western Mediterranean--note that's where Spain is--ostensibly in the name of Islam, with thousands of slaves captured, continued in the 1500s and 1600s. To the east of Italy, just across the Adriatic, the Ottomans took over Croatia and continued their offensive, occupying non-Muslim lands and implementing a two-tier justice system.

*That* was the world the Catholic Church and its arch-supporters, the Iberian monarchies, lived in.

Note that the Ottoman rulers weren't just secular; when they grabbed land and established their empire, it was also explicitly in the name of Islam and for the glory of their god. It's impolite to mention this kind of trivia, of course, because it sullies the honor and reputation of those we want to defend while saying that our arch-enemies aren't really any different from our would-be friends.

[trotsky]

8. Could it be that he's all talk? Just an elaborate PR campaign?

Naaaahhh!!

[Lordquinton]

9. It's easy to beg forgiveness from the dead