The Canonization of Junipero Serra - Rewriting American History

History is written by the victors... in this case the immigrants who overwhelmed the natives, though perhaps their victory is not complete yet.

Pope Francis pauses before the statue of St. Junipero Serra in the United States Capitol Building on Thursday.

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Thursday, September 24, 2015

Pope Francis canonized Junipero Serra at a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Thursday, September 24, 2015

Bishop Barron on the Canonization of Fray Junipero Serra

There is a FB page for him.

Did you watch Bishop Robert Barron's keynote talk yesterday at the World Meeting of Families 2015? What did you...

Posted by Word On Fire Catholic Ministries on Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Today we talk with Bishop Robert Barron about his keynote address at the World Meeting of Families, which he'll deliver...

Posted by Word On Fire Catholic Ministries on Monday, September 21, 2015

Explaining his coat of arms.

Fr. Junipero Serra

Junipero Serra and the renewal of mission

The superior of the Order of Friars Minor discusses the sainthood cause of Blessed Junipero Serra, who will be canonized in September during #PopeFrancis' trip to the United States. Full story: http://wp.me/p5DZKA-u

Posted by Catholic News Service on Monday, August 3, 2015

Using Fr. Serra for a Political Agenda

Archbishop Gomez: Junípero Serra's Canonization Is Message for ImmigrantsIn this interview with ZENIT, Los Angeles...

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Thursday, May 7, 2015

Related:

Cardinal Wuerl Speaks on Serra's Significant Role in Life of AmericaAhead of Blessed's Canonization Taking Place in His Diocese in September, Washington DC's Cardinal Speaks on Setting Record Straight

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Monday, May 4, 2015

Pope Asks Junipero Serra to Lead Him As He Embarks on Trips to North, South AmericaBefore 'Apostle of California's'...

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Monday, May 4, 2015

Scenes from the historic visit of Pope Francis to the NAC, on the occassion of the Day of Reflection on Blessed Junipero Serra.

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Wednesday, May 6, 2015

A Saint for California?

Blessed Junipero Serra's Life to Be Celebrated by Pope at Rome's Pontifical North American College'We Are Joyful to Welcome Pope Francis to Our Home,' PNAC's Rector Tells Press

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Monday, April 20, 2015

Presentation on Blessed Junipero Serra

The Press Office of the Holy See was the scene Monday morning for the presentation of a Day of Reflection on the life...
Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Monday, April 20, 2015

Press Conference for the presentation of the Day of reflection on Blessed Junipero Serra. Watch LIVE now!
Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Monday, April 20, 2015

Pope to canonize the Apostle of California on 23 September during visit to US

Roman Catholic triumphalism? A failure to respect national/ethnic differences and identity.
The new saint Fray Junípero and America’s true identity

Reviving Hispanic and Catholic memory within a more complete vision of the origin of the United States enriches history and today’s perspective of the life of the nation. It also helps break down separation walls that distinguish between what is “Anglo” and what is “Hispanic”, between the Protestant and the Catholics tradition, between the United States and Latin America. It shows a deeper communion between Churches and a greater solidarity between nations across the continent, as requested in the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Ecclesia in America”. And it allows millions of Hispanics living in the United States to free themselves from a mentality that sees them as people living like foreigners, on the margins of North American society, barely tolerated and often discriminated and persecuted. It allows them to recognise that they are in continuity with those Hispanics who populated vast areas of the South-West, the centre and the East of what is now US territory, for centuries. They really can say “We are Americans”, without having to abandon their best cultural and religious traditions. Their situation requires serious, deep, reasonable and fair migration reform and respect for the rights of migrants and their families. The big mistake of thinkers such as Samuel Huntington, was associating North American identity with all that is Anglo-Saxon.

Archbishop Cordileone on the Canonization of Fr. Junipero Serra

What future for Los Angeles?

Begun on July 5 at 11:20 A.M.

A post I needed, for reasons that will become apparent in a future post on the same topic, based on something more recent. (An address of Archbishop Gomez at the Napa Institute Conference became available.)

Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, What is most important for America (EWTN article).

Archbishop Gomez states that America is diverse, and yet he holds on to a rather monolithic conception of it as a political entity, or nation-state. Well, it's not a surprise -- the nationalist (as opposed to federalist*) conception has prevailed in education and the media.

Although it was founded by Christians, America has become home to an amazing diversity of cultures, religions and ways of life.

This diversity flourishes precisely because our nation’s founders had a Christian vision of the human person, freedom, and truth. It is a basic American belief that men and women are created equal — with God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Once again, proposition nation, the American creed. No mention of Anglo-American cultures and identities. So it shouldn't be a problem for Anglo-Americans to adopt Spanish missionaries and history as being important to our history, because they have no culture or identity of their own?

I believe American Catholics need to begin to see how these memorials belong together. America’s story starts with those Spanish missionaries. Our national character and identity are deeply marked by the Gospel values they brought to this land.

Holding up Spanish and French missionaries in high regard is not a problem for me; they are Catholic Christians after all. In fact, as saints they are owed dulia.  But I react badly to what the archbishop writes here because he seems to be no better than his predecessor with regard to protecting the natives and their culture. Is he just dealing with the demographic reality of Los Angeles and addressing the local church? Or is this intended for a wider audience? His words can be interpreted as pushing for the Hispanicisation of the Church. Is this an unwarranted? Am I jumping to conclusions because of my suspicions?

It is true that Anglo-Americans may not have any immediate Catholic predecessors to look to because of the Anglican schism and heresy. But staunch white Protestants will probably not accept the archbishop's historical claims concerning the founding or their history.

The feast of Junipero Serra is on July 1. He did not contribute to the American founding, but he has a place in the history of California. But who remembers what California was like before it became a republic? Who identifies with pre-Anglo California? Whose family has roots in that period of time, other than the Amerindians, whose history goes back further than that? The California Amerindians are  not the same as the ones in Mexico, and so the claims of Mexicans is second to that of the aborigines. (Who is still around representing the natives? I haven't met any, as far as I know.)

Honoring the same saints is not enough to create a sense of shared history, or to gather two peoples into one. The Church is the people of God, but that is a super-added identity; it does not replace or destroy ethnic identities. Immigrants from Catholic countries may be more open to identifying with these saints, but because their own sense of identity and history is malleable. There can be a blending of cultures, but I don't see how this can occur except for certain aspects of one being grafted onto the other (and intermarriage taking place). I may study the Carthaginians and their history, but does that make me a Carthaginian? I bet the Turks don't consider themselves Greeks after taking Constantinople, and they don't perceive a need to study Byzantine history and culture.

Besides, who will there be left to convert if more and more whites decide to leave the area? Ibero-American immigrants do have a great need for pastoring, as it is. Why preach to the non-Hispanics? Do non-whites take California history seriously, as a part of their identity? Those who have been here several generations and are established, such as the  nisei might, but their history is more of a local, lived sort, I would think, than one learned from a textbook. How many non-Hispanic Catholics will continue to live in [Southern] California if it becomes more and more Spanish-speaking?

Finally, do Mexicans themselves have an affinity for colonial times?  Or do they lack deep roots as well, being motivated more by nationalism and the desire to recover territory? Is the Church too "European" for many of them, especially the militant Atzlan groups and the like? How many think of themselves as heirs of Rome and its culture? How many would be willing to accept the history given by the archbishop as their own story? Perhaps they'd rather forget European colonialism.

From the beginning, Los Angeles been a meeting place of indigenous and immigrant cultures. We sit at the crossroads of continents — uniting North and South America and opening the Americas to Asia and the Pacific Rim.

In our new evangelization we must be an icon of what God intends his Church to be — one family of God that joins peoples of many colors, races, nationalities and languages.

A recognition that Los Angeles is "diverse." Inter-ethnic harmony is important, but is this the way to accomplish it?  (Does Los Angeles have a future if it is not sustainable?) Are the (militant) Hispanics accepting of non-Hispanics? How welcoming will they be once they are the majority in California? Will the attitudes behind what happened last month, with the booing of Team USA at the Gold Cup game in LA, be taken even further? (Soccer - The Patriot's Game)


A thought:
Hmmm... Are whites more likely to trusting because they are sheeple and take certain behaviors and attitudes for granted? Whereas members of other minorities are more likely to be suspicious, because they are aware of the unfamiliarity, lack of closeness? Does Putnam cover differences in attitudes according to ethnicity?

*Instead of nationalist, would unitary be a better word? But the word nationalist captures other aspects of the narrative, that there is just one people, one nation, with the exact same culture, and so on.

Related:
The City of Angels goes to hell. by Joel Kotkin
"Lost Angeles"

Decline and Fall of the Anglo Empire by Charles A. Coulombe

Edit. Archbishop José Gomez from Los Angeles receives the pallium from Pope Benedict

Jeff Culbreath has a post on Blessed Junipero Serra