Was anyone else disturbed, if not also mystified, that yesterday Pope Francis canonized JunÃpero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan monk who helped colonize California by brutal suppression of Native Americans? Since Native Americans have publicly campaigned against the canonization, the Pope was certainly aware of the controversy.
And not to engage in small-minded carping, but as an antiwar activist it appalls that he would refer to the US as the “land of the free & home of the brave.” Not for Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Yemen, et al, it ain’t. Of course, I’m still bristling over the Pope sweet-talking Palestinians while tacitly supporting Israel.
In the early 1960s, I was a young nun when another humble pope, Pope John XXIII, did Aggiornamento to bring reform & change to the Catholic Church. Nothing changed except the language of the liturgy. Women remained second-class members of the church. Nothing will change now either.
For some, words are enough. Not for me. That’s why I think he’s really the Bernie Sanders of Catholicism. You could say these are the gripes of a “fallen-away Catholic” but there are thousands within the church who feel exactly the same. There are not different standards for solidarity with the oppressed if you’re a pope. Or what’s the point of being a pope & all that ex cathedra stuff?