Discussion: Pope Francis Declares 18th-Century Missionary A Saint During First Mass In US

Discussion for article #240943

It looks like this headline is missing a few words: surely it was supposed to read “Pope Francis Declares 18th-Century Psychotic Sadomasochistic Missionary a Saint During First Mass in U.S.”, right?

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I dunno. Seems to me that enslaving people should be a deal breaker when it comes to sainthood; kind of sin, I’m told.

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Believe it or not I used to sing in an Episcopal Church choir many years ago, before losing my religion. I had taken several years of voice lessons in my younger days and was a passable tenor. There was a horrible little hokey hymn we used to sing on All Saints day - “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”, the words of which, a few of us jerks in the tenor section would parody. For example in two stanza’s off the top of my head

The original words were,

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green;

Where the second line became:

“And one was a man with a busted spleen”

And

And one [saint] was slain by a fierce wild beast;
And there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
Why I shouldn’t be one too.

became

“And one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
And there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
Why I shouldn’t be a beast too.”

Sometimes I think that if only comedians and very silly tenors served on the canonization guilds, we’d get better, and no doubt, fewer, saints.

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On the plus side, at least all the natives who were killed went to heaven. Right?

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In his homily, Francis defended Serra, characterizing him as a kind and open-hearted man who protected Native Americans from colonizers.

Good grief! He was the flippin’ colonizers. I’d like to know what miracles Serra performed. Aren’t saints supposed to have performed miracles? Also, the article doesn’t say in which mission Serra is planted. I’m guessing San Francisco. Have to look it up.

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Fr. Junipero Serra died at his room at Mission Carmel on August 28, 1784 at the age of 70 years, 9 months and 4 days.

Toward the end of life he told his friend and confessor, Fr. Francisco Palou: “I desire you to bury me in the church, quite close to Father Juan Crespi for the present; and when the stone church is built, they may put me where they want…” What he was referring to is that the present church at the mission was planned but not constructed at the time of his death. The present church was begun in 1793 and dedicated in 1797. When it was completed Fr. Serra’s remains were buried there. ~http://www.missionscalifornia.com/ate/where-father-junipero-serra-buried.html

Why isn’t Sarah Palin complaining about the guy in the white dress not speaking “American”?

“One day, my boy, this Mission will be for the birds”.

from the series, “Churches ad hoc”,
http://members.efn.org/~hkrieger/church.htm

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This Pope seems to get high marks on this board and in the press. Maybe Fr. Serra was foresaw climate change so he gets a pass on his treatment of the Indians.