Colorful Rite to Be Sept. 25 in Rome : Vatican Schedules Serra’s Beatification

Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-Century Franciscan missionary known as the “Apostle of California,” will be beatified Sept. 25 in a colorful ceremony in Rome, a Vatican official said Tuesday.

Pope John Paul II will celebrate a Mass, during which Serra will be elevated to the second of three steps to sainthood, said Msgr. Robert Sarno, an American priest assigned to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Four other sainthood candidates--including Miguel Augustine Pro, a controversial Mexican priest executed in 1927--will also be beatified during the ceremony, Sarno said in a telephone interview.

‘Next-to-Final Step’

Father Noel Francis Moholy, Serra’s chief backer in the United States, said the beatification is “the next-to-final step in the realization of a dream,” that of having the founder of California’s mission system declared a saint.

The Vatican’s decision to beatify Serra drew criticism from Native American historians and activists who charged that the mission system physically mistreated Indians and led to the destruction of their culture and civilization, as well to massive deaths through exposure to European diseases.

Bishop Thaddeus Shubsda of the Diocese of Monterey, who vigorously disputed these charges against Serra, was informed of the beatification date by a phone call from Father Juan Folguera, overseer of all sainthood candidates from the Franciscan Order, according to Moholy.

Weather permitting, the three-hour ceremony will be held on the morning of Sept. 25 in St. Peter’s Square, Sarno said.

Will Unfurl Banner

Early in the service, Shubsda--flanked by Folguera and Moholy--will approach the Pope and formally ask him to declare Serra “blessed.” Shubsda will read in English a short synopsis of Serra’s life, including the founding of nine Franciscan missions from San Diego to San Francisco. When the Pope pronounces Serra beatified, a large red banner with Serra’s image will be unfurled from a balcony overlooking the square.

During the part of the Mass called the offering, gifts symbolic of the life of the sainthood candidates are customarily brought forward. Moholy said in an interview Tuesday that he hopes that Serra’s gifts would include wheat from Majorca, where he was born in 1713 and where he was educated, as well as citrus, grapes and olives from California.