Pope Francis canonizes new saint

Pope Francis said that the Catholic Church's newest saint, Junipero, set an example for Christians to embrace the unknown and spread Christ's gospel. The pontiff canonized Junipero Serra during a mass outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC - the largest Catholic church in North America.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II in September 1988, Junipero Serra was elevated to sainthood in Washington on the second day of Francis' historic visit to the United States.

Serra is known for establishing the first nine Spanish missions stretching from San Diego to San Francisco in California, giving the Roman Catholic Church a firm foothold in what was then called 'New Spain.' Serra died in 1784 at the age of 70 in Carmel, California at the headquarters of his Alta California missions, where he remains interred under the chapel floor.

Native American opposition

But Francis' decision to canonize Serra was deeply polarizing. Among Native Americans, the new saint remains a controversial figure. They hold him responsible for the suppression of their centuries-old culture and the brutal death of countless thousands of their ancestors.

"We strongly oppose naming the murderer of our people and culture a saint," Toypurina Carac, spokesman for the Kizh Gabrieleno nation in greater Los Angeles said. An online petition, launched by Carac on the liberal website MoveOn.org, appealing to Pope Francis not to canonize Serra, had drawn more than 10,600 signatures.

"We are very surprised that a modern, progressive pope like Francis would follow through on this, without doing his homework on the history of Serra and his true legacy."

Meanwhile Ron Andrade, director of the Los Angeles city and county Native American Indian Commission, acknowledged that Serra himself never personally killed anyone.

"But then, neither did Hitler," he said while referring to what he called the "genocide" of California's indigenous peoples.

Acknowledgement of historic wrongs

Francis acknowledged that mistreatment and wrongs against the Native American community "today still trouble us" in an apparent reference to protests against the sainthood.

"Junipero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it. Mistreatment and wrongs, which today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people," Francis added, trying to defend his decision.

During a visit to South America in July, Francis had offered a broad apology for the sins, offenses and crimes committed by the church against indigenous people.

Appreciation among Latinos

Many Latinos in the US view the canonization of a Spanish-speaking missionary as a badly needed acknowledgment of the Hispanic history of the American church, and as an affirmation of Latinos' core part of the US Catholic future.

Latinos make up about 38 percent of US Catholics, but are well above the majority in several dioceses. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest one in the US, is about 70 percent Latino.

ss/bw (AFP, AP, dpa)