WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- Pope Francis is slated to canonize a controversial 18th-century Franciscan Missionary during his visit to Washington, but for many Native Americans, Junipero Serra is more sinner than saint.
Catholic leaders say Pope Francis is familiar with the controversy and is planning to declare Junipero Serra a saint anyway during a mass at the National Basilica. A number of Native Americans are promising to be at the mass protesting.
Critics say Serra does not deserve his place among the statues at the U.S. Capitol and does not deserve to be named a saint.
"I think it's really sad to see someone that enacted genocide on an entire group of people elevated and canonized, made into a saint, when he did things that were absolutely not saintly," Tara Houska, a Native American activist in D.C., said.
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In 1748, Serra left his comfortable life as a Catholic philosophy professor on the Spanish island of Majorca to spread the word of God in the new world. He created nine of the California missions and set out to convert the Native Americans to Christianity.
"His primary purpose was to evangelize," Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron said. "What set his heart on fire was to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to people who had never heard it."
The Native Americans were free to enter the missions, but if they were caught trying to flee they were flogged. Hundreds of thousands died of European diseases, of starvation, and at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors.
But Pope Francis, who has apologized for colonialism, called Serra a "founding father" of the United States, and "a saintly example of the church's universality."
Fr. Barron says Serra intervened on behalf of a Native American who had killed his good friend.
"Serra rose up and said, ‘No, no, we're not here to kill people, were here to bring them the Gospel.' And he urged them not to execute him," Fr. Barron said.
"His evangelical message destroyed almost an entire population of people," Houska, the Native American activist said.
In Spanish colonial towns in California, there was usually a presidio for the soldiers and a mission for the missionaries. And supporters insist that time and time again, Serra intervened with the troops to protect the Native Americans.
Critics are not buying it.
Pope Francis is encouraging something he calls the New Evangelism. He wants the Church to leave the comfortable center and reach out to the periphery. Church leaders say Serra is the perfect example of someone willing to leave his comfortable life, and head for a place that at that time was as foreign as the moon.
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