Founder of local missions to be canonized a saint
Friar Junipero Serra is to be proclaimed a saint of the Catholic church when Pope Francis visits the United Stated this coming September, reports CBS Los Angeles.
Friar Juniperro Serra will soon be a saint. Image from Wikipedia.
Friar Serra, 1713-1784, was a missionary who brought Christianity to the Western United States and established many of the missions in California. In 1771 he founded Mission San Antonio de Padua in southern Monterey County, now on Fort Hunter Liggett near lake San Antonio; in 1772 he founded Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, now located in downtown San Luis Obispo. Local Mission San Miguel Arcángel was established after Serra’s death by Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen in 1797.
“I was happy and surprised that the Holy Father Pope Francis announced the canonization of blessed Junipero Serra,” said Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the CBS report. “It’s a great joy for all of us in California, and in the United States, and, for that matter, for the universal church, because [he] was a blessed man.”
UC Riverside history Prof. Steven Hackel, considered one of the world’s leading scholars on Junipero Serra, said the friar played a huge role in the state’s history, the report says. Many experts consider his book “Junipero Serra: California’s Founding Father” is the definitive reference on Father Serra’s life.
According to Hackel, “Had Serra not come to California in 1769, certainly other Franciscans would have. But he had the will, the administrative skill, the driving force to establish many missions in California.
“His greatest accomplishments were, in a sense, establishing California as a region, which, in theory, had a common language, a common religion, and was linked together through a series of roads and missions and presidios.”
Hackel also confirms Serra was a controversial figure because of the treatment of Native Americans that was permitted at the time.
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