Who is serra

Despite the fact that, during his time as a missionary, Father Serra had very little involvement with promoting priestly vocations, today it can only be considered providential that a holy priest who demonstrated such zeal for the salvation of souls would be chosen as the patron of our global vocations apostolate, considering that the primary focus of its work is fostering and promoting vocations to the holy priesthood and to supporting the sacred ministry of priests, those who spend and consume themselves for the salvation of souls.

Our ministry is global, but local vocations needs are unique. Find out what Serrans around the world are doing in support and celebration of our mission. While building these missions, Serra pressed native peoples into labor, and sought — along with the entire Catholic missionary apparatus — to "civilize" them by stripping them of their cultures and converting them to Christianity.

Activists argue that Serra is largely responsible for decimating entire tribes and villages — often through the introduction of diseases — and for flogging and imprisoning indigenous people who disobeyed his commands. Some historians of color, like Ruben Mendoza, say that Serra's legacy has been misrepresented. Mendoza is the coordinator of California mission archaeology at Cal State Monterey Bay, and as he told the Los Angeles Times in , Serra was "actually in constant conflict with governors and military commanders in New Spain over how they were treating Indians," and he says he can't find any evidence of abuse of native people in Serra's own documents.

Gregory Orfalea, who wrote a biography of Serra , says that Serra urged the Spanish viceroy to spare the lives of a group of indigenous people who were blamed for murdering three Spaniards in San Diego in And far from being a matter that relates mainly to California's history, it says everything about our state's present — and future. In , he traveled north to California, and founded a string of missions stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. If members of a nearby Indigenous tribe were baptized, they were then brought into a mission where they were ordered to abandon many aspects of their culture and customs, and forced into labor — and prevented from leaving.

Anyone who tried to escape the mission was subject to being hunted down and brought back. Thousands of Indigenous people in the missions died from exposure to European diseases and from the brutal labor they were forced to perform. He did incalculable damage to a whole culture. A week after the canonization, a statue of Serra in Monterey was decapitated. Two years later in Santa Barbara, another Serra monument at the city's mission was also decapitated and covered with red paint.

Almost three decades earlier, in , Francis' predecessor Pope John Paul II had actually kicked off the sanctification process by beatifying Serra. That announcement too was greeted with horror by Indigenous voices, but even back then, it represented only the latest articulation of of anti-Serra protest. Buckley Jr. In , L. Amid a national reckoning with U. So if a statue comes down, or a place is renamed, what is the way forward?

Should a statue of Serra be replaced by a figure from local Indigenous history? Create a dance arena. Give them back their shellmounds Generations of California-educated people chiefly remember their fourth-grade "build a model mission" projects — and a conspicuous lack of criticism around Serra and his actions.

Of her own fourth grade mission education, Morning Star Gali says she knew "even back then that it was bogus. Two years ago, when her now year-old son's fourth grade teacher announced plans for a class visit to a Spanish mission, Gali says she flatly objected. That's not happening. I will take my son to the nearby state park, to the nearby roundhouse where he can learn about our California Indian teaching that way.

But he will not be doing any 'mission field trip. Greg Sarris says he's hopeful about the possibility that Indigenous voices have enough influence to make change when it comes to furthering knowledge of Native American history — albeit "sadly," he says, "only because of the money generated from our casinos that let us use that power.

In , Serra took on a new challenge—bringing his faith to the New World as a missionary. Serra landed in Vera Cruz and walked miles to Mexico City. Along the way, he suffered an injury to his leg, which would cause him pain the rest of his days. He volunteered for the Sierra Gorda missions in , which were located in the lands of Pame Indians.

Serra preached to the native people and sought ways to improve the area's economy. During the late s into the s, Serra played many different roles at the College of San Fernando. He also continued his preaching on several different missions, including to Puebla and Oaxaca. In , Serra began his journey northward where he would do some of his best-known work.

Moving further north, he founded another mission in San Diego, first of nine missions he created in what is present-day California, that July. Serra spent the rest of his life devoted to his evangelical work in the region. In trying to bring his religion to the Native Americans sometimes led to clashes with his own government.

He clashed with Spanish authorities over the way soldiers treated the native peoples. While he advocated on behalf of native peoples, Serra also sought to correct them when they broke the rules as well. He supported the use of corporal punishment for offenses. On August 28, , Serra died at the age of 70 at Mission San Carlos, the one of missions he founded.