Tribal Chairmen’s Assn. Letter Opposing Serra Canonization

The Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association, in a September, 2015 letter to Pope Francis, opposes the canonization of the Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra. Fr. Serra was responsible for founding and building, by means of the forced labor of our Native ancestors, nine of the twenty-one Spanish Catholic missions that were eventually built on the traditional territories of our various Native nations in California. Pope Francis, you are evidently unaware of the deadly toll and devastating effect that the Catholic Mission system had on our nations and peoples here in California. How else can we make sense of you associating the image of “sainthood” with a Spanish Catholic missionary who instituted and imposed a Catholic mission system upon our ancestors with deadly and dehumanizing effects?