Father Junipero Serra to become a saint in September

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles is hailing the decision by Pope Francis to canonize Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Spanish Franciscan priest who is both revered and reviled for founding nine missions in California.

The canonization ceremony is expected to take place next September when the pontiff visits the United States, where he is scheduled to make stops in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. His announcement about Serra stoked speculation that he might add a visit to California, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“He was the evangelizer of the West in the United States,” said the pope, whose statement came as an aside Thursday while he was flying to the Philippines on the final leg of his Asian tour, The Times reported. In comments carried by Catholic News Service, Francis said he would bypass the usual requirement that a second miracle be verified to bestow sainthood.

The decision to elevate Serra, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1988, was met with joy, shock, pain and condemnation, The Times reported — a reflection of a legacy that persists even centuries after Serra’s 1784 death at the Carmel mission near Monterey at the age of 61.

“He was a very assertive and aggressive missionary,” Steven Hackel, a professor of history at UC Riverside and the author of a biography on Serra, said in comments reported by The Times. “What he symbolizes in the Catholic Church is their attempt to teach Indians to live as Spanish Catholics rather than who they were born as.”

Archbishop Jose Gomez, head of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s biggest, called Serra one of his “spiritual heroes” and said the pope’s decision had been a “gift to California and the Americas,” The Times reported.

“It’s wonderful to think that this new saint once walked the road that is now the Hollywood Freeway and called it El Camino Real, “The King’s Highway,’” Gomez said in a statement, noting that two of Serra’s missions are located within the archdiocese’s territory: missions San Gabriel Arcangel and San Buenaventura.

Before Serra’s arrival, hundreds of thousands of indigenous people lived in what is today California. But the mission system imposed pressure on Indians to assimilate while also exposing thousands to foreign diseases, wiping out villages, native animals and plants.

“Most Indians who came to missions didn’t live very long,” Hackel said, according to The Times. “Those baptized lived short lives.”

—Staff and wire reports