'Evangelizer Of the West'

Richard A. Sokerka

The full schedule of the visit of Pope Francis to Cuba, Washington, New York and Philadelphia in September, released by the Vatican last week, includes one event that secular media seems to have largely ignored. That event — the Pope’s canonization of Blessed Junipero Serra on Sept. 23 in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington — is a once-in-a-lifetime moment of grace for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Blessed Serra, a Franciscan priest and missionary to what is now present-day California in the 1700s, founded the first nine of 21 eventual missions there. The missions were used to teach Native Ameri­cans the Catholic faith and to learn new skills, such as growing crops and raising livestock to help improve their lives. Deeply concerned about the well-being of Native Americans, it is told that he embarked on a long trip, most of it by foot with a cancerous tumor in his leg, to advocate on their behalf before the viceroy in Mexico, who governed the territory. At Serra’s behest, the viceroy issued a bill of rights for Native Americans.

“He was the evangelizer of the West in the United States,” Pope Francis has declared.

For all he did in California, Father Serra’s statue has stood in the U.S. Capi­tol’s National Statuary Hall Collection since 1931. His statue cradles a church in his left arm and holds a cross aloft in his outstretched right arm.

But on the eve of this Franciscan’s canonization, one California lawmaker, Sen. Ricardo Lara (D), labeling the priest “a controversial figure,” wants to remove the statue and replace it with California native, Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space. He said his effort to replace the statue with Ride’s is about “recognizing the invaluable contributions of an accomplished Californian and American pioneer.” And Blessed Serra was not?

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles stated: “The historical record confirms what Pope Francis believes — that Blessed Junípero Serra was a man of heroic virtue and holiness who had only one burning ambition — to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the peoples of the New World.” “Removing his statue would be an affront to the people of California,” said Sen. Jeff Stone (R), “and it would be an insult to the tens of millions of Catholics that call California home.”

We pray that Sen. Stone will be successful in defeating this legislation so that when Pope Francis canonizes him, the statue of St. Junipero Serra will be standing in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection as it has for the last 84 years.