The State - News from June 7, 1987

When Pope John Paul II visits Monterey in September, the pontiff will encounter Native American groups protesting the possible beatification and canonization of Father Junipero Serra, founder of the California mission system, a local newspaper reported. Demonstrators have announced plans to surround the Carmel Mission on Sept. 16 and 17 with thousands of members of local Indian groups, such as the Chumash, and Seminoles and Muskogees tribes from out of state, according to the Herald of Monterey. CheQweesh Auh-ho-ho, a Chumash Indian who led a one-woman protest during an August, 1985, ceremony at Carmel Mission marking the bicentennial of Serra’s death, said that the Vatican has “reopened an old wound” by holding up the famous priest as a model, when he was “the architect of the mission system, which meant death to our people.”