Stories of Pope, Mother Teresa Also in Print : Serra to Join Ranks of Comic Book Elite

Although Father Junipero Serra’s progress toward sainthood is on hold, the California missions founder will soon join the elite ranks of St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, the Apostle Paul and even Pope John Paul II--as a comic book hero.

Franciscan Communications, a Los Angeles company with a line of religious comic books, is about to publish its latest, “Serra: American Founding Father.”

Serra, a Spanish-born missionary, established the first nine of California’s 22 Catholic missions between 1769 and his death in 1784--the same period of time when America’s Founding Fathers on the East Coast helped establish a new nation.

Longtime backers of sainthood for the Franciscan padre had been hoping that the Pope would celebrate a Mass of beatification for Serra when he stops at Monterey on Sept. 17.

Beatification Stalled

But Serra’s candidacy for Roman Catholic beatification--the second of three steps to sainthood--was stalled this summer. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which must approve beatification before the Pope makes the final decision, could not be assembled in time before Pope John Paul II’s Sept. 10-19 U.S. tour.

As it turns out, the papal journey to America is coming too soon also for Franciscan Communications.

Because of delays in finishing the artwork for the Serra comic, it will not be out until October. But Father Karl Holtsnider, president of Franciscan Communications, said plans still call for printing 100,000 copies in English and 10,000 in Spanish. They will sell for $1.25 a copy.

Father Roy Gasnick, 53, wrote the story and script for the Serra comic book--although not as a means to prod the Vatican on beatification, he said.

Rather, Gasnick said he was doing for Serra what he has done for other admired Catholic figures. The priest collaborated with Marvel Comics in New York for comic books on St. Francis of Assisi and India’s Mother Teresa. Marvel Comics has also published the story of Pope John Paul II.

Those comic book titles from Marvel, in association with Paulist Press, have sold much better than most conventional religious books. The St. Francis issue has sold more than 1 million copies in English and other languages since it was published seven years ago. The Pope’s comic book (1982) and “Mother Teresa of Calcutta” (1984) have sold about 500,000 and 350,000 copies, respectively.

The Serra comic book will be the 12th on religious figures or Catholic beliefs issued by the Franciscan-run multimedia center, a nonprofit company in Los Angeles’ Garment District. “Our best seller was ‘The Story of the Mass,’ published about three years ago, which has sold well over 100,000 copies,” said Bill Sheck, an administrator with the company.

Sheck said Franciscan Communications expects to do equally well with the Serra comic book. Serra International, a large Catholic lay organization, provided two-thirds of the $70,000 production costs and is expected to promote the comic book.

Franciscan Communications has also published comic books on the lives of the Apostle Paul and several modern-era saints, but Serra’s story will be their first of a Catholic hero still short of sainthood.

Author Gasnick, however, feels that the popular genre of comics has an importance all its own. Putting the stories of real persons into comic books amounts to a “secular canonization,” he said in an interview before he left Los Angeles for a sabbatical.

“It’s one thing for the church to say a person is a ‘saint’ and has value as a model,” the Franciscan priest said. But the comics format “bridges the gap between the so-called ‘out of it’ world of religion and the everyday world,” he said.

“All age levels seem to enjoy them,” Gasnick said. “They are big sellers on Catholic college campuses, in prisons and in military service.”

Parallels Seen

Parallels exist among religious saints and the Spidermen, Hulks and Captain Americas in the comics, Gasnick claimed. “They (all) rise above their origins, they stand for good against evil, and they champion the downtrodden or powerless,” he said.

However, Gasnick said he was aware that Serra has not always assumed heroic proportions in the eyes of some historians and Native American groups.

Since the 19th Century, historians have charged that missionaries under Serra’s authority disciplined Indian converts by whipping them and putting them in chains. They have also said that Indians in the missions were compelled to give up their culture and to provide forced labor. As a result of exposure to European diseases, Indians died in large numbers.

Gasnick said he read news articles critical of Serra and tried to be sensitive to objections to Serra’s church image as benefactor of the California natives. “I felt it would be a grave disservice not to hit those issues head on,” Gasnick said, though conceding that his representation of Serra is favorable throughout the finished script.

One panel in the comic book shows soldiers whipping the backs of an Indian and a soldier. The narrative for that panel reads: “Common rules were established. Those who broke the rules were punished.”

Gasnick had a spaceship chaplain in the year 2069 tell the story of Serra. The next panel shows the spaceship: A young crewmember reacts to the chaplain’s mention of whipping: “Serra whipped Indians!” But the chaplain corrects him, “Not Serra, the soldiers.” The chaplain goes on to explain that whipping was “the common punishment at the time--in Spain, Britain, France, all Europe” and that even into the 20th Century U.S. teachers used to whack schoolchildren with rulers.