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Thursday, April 30, 2015

Urge Pope Francis to abandon the canonization of Junipero Serra.

I signed a petition initiated by the The California Indian Environmental Alliance with the following statement:


I am a Hindu Indian.


A member of a non white, non Abrahamic, Dharmic civilisation that has made immeasurably rich contributions to guide and inspire humanity.


However, it has also suffered immensely from mercenary and racist invasions, enslavement, loot and pillaging for which both Islam and Christianity have provided religious cover.


Noteworthy, that these actions of unspeakable insanity were rationalised by the vandals as civilising missions.


Even as they looted and attempted to destroy a magnificent civilisation, they presented themselves as saviours.


Indians were in the words of a popular writer of his time, "The White Man's Burden".


As a survivor of successive holocausts of invasion and colonialism, I have a solemn moral obligation, to my wise and heroic ancestors and to our beloved children, to ensure that such horrors would never engulf humanity again.


Alas, the powerful Roman Catholic Church with its immense illegitimate wealth, its multi national organisation and its mesmerising religious cachet appears to suffer no such scruples.


Motivated by a shockingly myopic, parochial and divisive political intent and displaying a most disturbing madness, it seeks to abuse its immense power by brushing aside and trampling over the dignity and humanity of those valiant and vital few who have survived its depredations.


What an obscene picture !


This corrupt and ugly behemoth that has in one stroke revived memories of some of the most vicious cruelties of White Christian Supremacist savagery.


The Vatican cannot by any enlightened standard of ethics and morality be allowed to prevail.


All conscientious citizens must consider this savage obduracy of this putatively religious organisation as a personal affront to their dignity and to the safety, sanity and fearless, loving essence of their children.


They must do everything in their power to stop this brutality in its tracks and show Vatican a way out of its noisome mental cloisters.


Junipero Serra belongs in a dark and forgettable dustbin of history. And there he must be allowed to lie.

He has little to offer the future.

The following is an invitation to you to sign the petition.

Hi, 

As Native Californians, descendants of Mission Indians, we ask Pope Francis to abandon his plan to declare Junipero Serra a Saint. Pope Francis has indicated that he "Values Human Life" yet our people were suppressed, dominated and enslaved by Serra and considered collateral damage to the Church. This plan will not celebrate Hispanics (since Serra and his Soldiers were foreign invaders), welcome Native Peoples back to the Catholic Church, or honor our ancestors. It will re-awaken the post Inquisition, Doctrine of Discovery; a very dark, and brutal time in the history of the Catholic Church and Civilization. 

The passage of time has not made the reality of dominations and genocide of Indigenous Californians go away, nor has it made the Mastermind of the brutal Mission system a Saint. We respectfully ask you to urge the Pope to vacate this plan and open a meaningful dialogue with California Nations. We do not want an apology, rather, we need tangible policies from the Church to abandon the Papal Bulls the Doctrine of Discovery and to recognize the inhumane treatment of our ancestors. Abandoning the canonization of Junipero Serra is the first step. 

That's why I signed a petition to His Holiness, Pope Francis, which says:

"Pope Francis is coming to Washington, D.C., to canonize Junipero Serra as a Saint. It is imperative he is enlightened to understand that Father Serra was responsible for the deception, exploitation, oppression, enslavement and genocide of thousands of Indigenous Californians, ultimately resulting in the largest ethnic cleansing in North America. 

The reality of the California Mission system has yet to be accurately taught in California schools or recognized by the Catholic Church. Elementary school children tour mission grounds and are taught that native people were "docile and child-like savage pagans, saved by the kind and benevolent padres". In reality, the human remains of thousands of indigenous people are scattered beneath the grounds of the Missions that were built by Indian slaves as garrisons for the church and Spanish crown. Indigenous people died of rape, beatings and diseases introduced by the Spanish conquistadors in California. Spanish Priests did little to recognize indigenous people as humans and did not come to their rescue when women were raped by soldiers and settlers. With an over 90% indigenous mortality rate, Serra hardly "saved many souls". 



Will you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name: 

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/urge-pope-francis-to?source=s.fwd&r_by=13040488 

Thanks!