Junipero Serra as Saint?

It is bad enough that we celebrate Columbus Day here in the United States.  Columbus, while praising and thanking God for the bounty of human cargo, was responsible for the complete and total genocide of the Arawak people on the island of Haiti (and Dominican Republic).  Women and children were raped and murdered while the men were taken as slaves if not murdered and tortured. 

Likewise, His Holiness Pope Francis plans to declare Junipero Serra a Saint.  The Pope has indicated that he "Values Human Life" yet the indigenous people who were dominated by Serra were considered collateral damage by the Church. The canonization of Junipero Serra will glorify and support post Inquisition Doctrine of Discovery; a very dark, and brutal time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church and Civilization.

The domination and genocide of Indigenous Californians from the brutal Mission system does not support this canonization.  Rather than make this man a saint it would be better to recognize the inhumane treatment of the indigenous people of California by openly abandoning the canonization of Junipero Serra.

Pope Francis is coming to Washington, D.C., to canonize Junipero Serra as a Saint and it is imperative he is enlightened to understand that Father Serra was responsible for the deception, exploitation, oppression, enslavement and genocide of thousands of indigenous Californians, ultimately resulting in the largest ethnic cleansing in North America.

The reality of the California Mission system has yet to be accurately taught in California schools or recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. Elementary school children tour mission grounds and are taught that native people were "docile and child-like savage pagans, saved by the kind and benevolent padres."  In reality, the human remains of thousands of indigenous people are scattered beneath the grounds of the Missions that were built by Native American slaves as garrisons for the church and Spanish crown. Indigenous people died of rape, beatings and diseases introduced by the Spanish conquistadors in California. Spanish Priests did little to recognize indigenous people as humans and did not come to their rescue when women and children were raped by soldiers and settlers. With an over 90% indigenous mortality rate, Serra hardly "saved many souls."  This is another great shame of the Roman Catholic Church beneath the banner of Christianity.

Urge the Pope to vacate this plan by writing to him.  Pope Francis does not have a direct mailing address but you can contact the Vatican's press office at av@pccs.va  Alternately you can mail to the pope via usual mail at this address:

His Holiness, Pope Francis
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City  

(Vatican City is its own country so you don't need anything more than that.  While procuring postage, if your postal worker insists you that you need a country or begins to write "Italy" on the envelope, stop him and ask him to look it up)

The Pope's Twitter handle is:
@pontifex

To gleam some ancillary insight into what happened, If you have not yet seen the movie THE MISSION (1986), do so.