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A thread for those who read the recent NYT op-ed on St. Junípero Serra by @ebruenig but not the paywalled journal article she cited. In it, James Sandos argues that there was selective engagement with the historical record in Serra's canonization process.
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He extensively discusses the 1986 "Serra Report", issued by the bishop of Monterey, which drew on interviews with historians to address Serra's critics. Sandos notes that "the questions were frequently leading and often open-ended."
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According to the Tekakwitha Conference of Native Catholics the report was "grossly inaccurate and totally misrepresent[ed] the native understanding of its own history and culture." This is perhaps illustrated most egregiously here:
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![According to the Tekakwitha Conference of Native Catholics the report was "grossly inaccurate and totally misrepresent[ed] the native understanding of its own history and culture." This is perhaps illustrated most egregiously here:3/](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfvOcA8UMAEPJOE.png "According to the Tekakwitha Conference of Native Catholics the report was \"grossly inaccurate and totally misrepresent[ed] the native understanding of its own history and culture.\" This is perhaps illustrated most egregiously here:3/")
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A glaring omission of the "Serra Report", on the matter of corporal punishment, is that "[n]one [of the interviewed scholars] mentioned published Indian accounts of complaint." In fact, none of them addressed "Serra's own
attitudes on flogging and punishment" at all.
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attitudes on flogging and punishment" at all.
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CW: graphic violence
This example comes from one of the missions that wasn't operated by Serra. However, it is indicative of the kinds of accounts that linguistic/anthropological fieldwork had made readily available by the time of the report.
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This example comes from one of the missions that wasn't operated by Serra. However, it is indicative of the kinds of accounts that linguistic/anthropological fieldwork had made readily available by the time of the report.
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