While the controversy that had brewed
earlier in the year has quieted down, there has already been a renewal of some
of the disagreement in reaction to the Pope’s forthcoming canonization of JunÃpero
Serra in the United States. The sainting of the eighteenth century missionary on
23rd September at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. is in keeping with what Sylvia Poggioli, National Public Radio correspondent, describes as “an effort to
restore the historical balance away from [the] ‘Anglo-centric’ interpretation
of U.S. history to the importance of Catholic missions” (npr.org: 16 September,
2015). One might liken this to a rethinking of South Asian history that takes
into consideration the colonial influence on the subcontinent by not only the
British, but also the Portuguese. Similarly, the defining of the United States
as a once British colony, heavily inclined towards Protestantism, has caused
the Spanish and Catholic past of North America to be relegated to a historical
footnote.
Indeed, it is noteworthy that the
Church’s first Latin American Pope is to give the United States its first
Hispanic saint. This, even as it must be pointed out that the Pope’s ethnic
origins are Italian, and that the term ‘Hispanic’ cannot be used
interchangeably for ‘Latino’. The former is a term meant to refer to those of
Spanish heritage, and is often erroneously deployed to label those of Latin
American origins. What should be gleaned from this is that even as Serra’s
canonization recalls the non-British past of the colonization of the United
States, it continues to highlight the European figures of that past. Given the
many radical changes the Pope has wrought in modernizing the Church,
dramatically changing public perceptions of the institution, Serra is a
peculiar choice for canonization.
Serra, a Franciscan friar, came from
Spain to California to evangelize, founding its first missions in the
eighteenth century. Writing for the National
Catholic Reporter (NCR), Jamie Manson notes that Serra “is credited by the
Catholic church for proselytizing and baptizing the indigenous people”, but
that “[his] story is laced with disturbing details…” (ncronline.org: 16
September, 2015). It is not Serra’s holiness – a prerequisite for sainthood –
that Manson questions. Rather, in quoting the views of Elias Castillo, author
of the book Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California’s
Indians by the Spanish Missions (2015), as well as Valentin Lopez, Chair
of the Amah
Mutsun Tribal Band of the Costanoan/Ohlone Indians, Manson states
that “Serra was a religious zealot whose primary purpose was to save the souls
of the indigenous, whom he saw as savages in desperate need of salvation…” Also
writing for NCR, Vinnie Rotondaro chronicles how Native American objectors to
Serra’s canonization “point to the rampant death that occurred inside the
missions – where thousands perished, crammed into poor living quarters with
disease running wild – and say that Serra was so blinded by his belief in his
faith and his people’s superiority that he focused more on baptizing Indians
than tending to their suffering” (15 September, 2015).
For Goans, it would be rather easy to see the parallels between Serra and fellow-Spaniard St. Francis Xavier. Yet,
it would be a false equivalence to liken the conversion of Goans to the plight
of indigenous Americans. The throngs at last year’s Exposition indicate the
continuing relevance of Xavier to Goan Catholics. Certainly, like Serra, Xavier
is remembered by history as having been involved in the subjugation of the
indigenous through the nexus between Church and state. It is not their personal
piety that is in doubt here, but their unwitting sponsorship of persecution.
However, evolving scholarship must also be accounted for when it comes to Goa’s
Iberian past, and especially in the context of the Inquisition. Yes, Xavier was
responsible for its initiation, but whether it was as repressive as common lore
has made it out to be is the subject of contemporary debate. Further, conversion
to Catholicism in South Asia was not without some degree of choice. For those
that chose to escape the yoke of the caste system, conversion was an expression
of agency rather than external force.
As he did on his visit to Bolivia
earlier this year, the Pope is expected to apologize for the part played by the
Church in the oppression of indigenous peoples in North America. But this
apology is going to be a tone-deaf one in that Serra’s canonization is an
institutional choice rather than a popular one. That Goans, Catholic and
otherwise, still revere Xavier, for example, underscores how so many centuries
later he has come to represent an icon who was adopted by a people. The same is
not true of Serra.
From The Goan.
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