A Bit Late, Vatican Officially Approves Serra Sainthood
Nicole Winfield of the AP reports, “The Vatican’s saint-making office has officially given its thumbs up for the Rev. Junipero Serra to be declared a saint.” She writes of the controversial saint: “Serra is hailed by the Catholic Church as a great evangelizer who established 21 missions across California. Many Native Americans, though, accuse him of forced conversions, enslaving converts and helping wipe out indigenous populations as part of the European colonization machine in the Americas.”