Pope canonizes Junipero Serra, says faith is alive only when shared

Friday, Oct. 02, 2015

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Canonizing the 18th-century Spanish missionary Blessed Junipero Serra, Pope Francis insisted a person’s faith is alive only when it is shared.

Celebrating Mass outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, the pope declared the holiness of Saint Junipero, founder of a string of missions in California.

Some people had objected to the canonization – like the beatification of the Spaniard in 1988 – because of questions about how Father Serra treated the native peoples of California and about the impact of Spanish colonization on native peoples throughout the Americas.

Pope Francis mentioned the controversy briefly, saying: “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.”

Vincent Medina, who has questioned the wisdom of the canonization, read the first Scripture reading in the Chochenyo language of the Ohlone people of Northern California.

Before the formal proclamation of the missionary’s sainthood, a choir and the congregation chanted a litany invoking the intercession of Jesus, Mary, the apostles and a long list of saints, including other saints who lived and worked in the United States, such as St. Frances Cabrini, St. Elizabeth. 

The canonization of St. Junipero was the first such ceremony to be celebrated in the United States.

Catholics in the U.S. and throughout the world are indebted to St. Junipero and thousands of other witnesses who lived their faith and passed it on, the pope said in his homily.

St. Junipero “was excited about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing their particular customs and ways of life,” Pope Francis said.