text: An Assailed Missionary To America Is Beatified - The New York Times
  U.S.|An Assailed Missionary To America Is Beatified
  An Assailed Missionary To America Is Beatified
  September 26, 1988, Section A, Page 12Buy Reprints
  Pope John Paul II today beatified an 18th-century missionary, the Rev. Junipero Serra, bringing the controversial pioneer of the American West within one step of sainthood.
  At a solemn Mass offered this morning before about 30,000 people in St. Peter's Square, the Pope praised Father Serra as ''a shining example of Christian virtue and the missionary spirit.''
  ''His great goal,'' John Paul said, ''was to bring the Gospel to the Native People of America, so that they too might be consecrated in the truth.''
  Some American Indians have protested the beatification of Father Serra, saying he physically mistreated their ancestors and that he was part of a colonial system that eradicated their culture. However, before a nominee is considered for beatification, the Vatican conducts a long study of the subject's life. Missions Along Pacific Coast
  Father Serra, who died in 1794, spent 15 years in what is now California and founded 9 of 21 Franciscan missions along the Pacific coast, Some of them became cities, like San Diego and San Francisco. His pioneering has been commemorated in monuments at both the Capitol in Washington and California's Capitol in Sacramento.
  With today's ceremony, the Spanish-born Franciscan is assured a special place in the Roman Catholic faith and may now be the object of public prayer and veneration.
  The Pope beatified five other people today, among them the Rev. Miguel Augustin Pro, a Mexican Jesuit who was executed in 1927 by the police at the height of anticlerical agitation by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which still governs Mexico today.
  For the service this morning, John Paul stood at a golden altar at the top of the steps to St. Peter's Basilica under the radiant skies of the waning Roman summer. Huge portraits of the five nominees decorated the facade of the great cathedral. John Paul Defends Nominee
  About 500 Americans, most of them Californians, came to Rome for Father Serra's beatification, according to the Rev. Noel Francis Moholy, who for nearly 40 years has promoted sainthood for Father Serra.
  Last year, on his visit to the United States, John Paul prayed at Father Serra's grave at a mission in Carmel, Calif. He also took the occasion of an address to a gathering of Native Americans in Phoenix to defend the missionary, and he defended Father Serra again today.
  In his homily, the Pope said that Father Serra, in his dealings with Indians, ''was well aware of their heroic virtues,'' and that the missionary ''sought to further their authentic human development on the basis of their newfound faith as persons created and redeemed by God.'' Charges Against the Missionaries
  The treatment of Indians by missionaries who accompaned the Spanish colonialists into the Americas has long been a subject of dispute. Several historians say the Franciscan missionaries of California herded Indians into forced labor and flogged them if they disputed church teachings or tried to escape.
  Some of the harshest criticism against Father Serra has come from Rupert Costo, a Cahuilla Indian, who edited a book published last year, ''The Missions of California: A Legacy of Genocide.'' It charges mistreatment of Indians by Father Serra and his associates.
  Msgr. Robert J. Sarno, an official of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, said that Mr. Costo's book and other materials alleging malfeasance by Father Serra had been carefully studied both by the Vatican and independent historians, and that ''none of the charges were substantiated because no one is beatified if there is a shadow of a doubt about their virtue.'' Ailing Boy and Nun on Hand
  Father Moholy, Father Serra's supporter in Rome, helped organize trips to Rome for two people he said he hoped would benefit from the beatification and would move Father Serra's nomination towards canonization itself - the proclamation of sainthood.
  One of these visitors is Brendan O'Rourke, 5 years old, whom the Pope held and hugged a year ago this month in San Francisco. Brendan had become infected with the AIDS virus during a blood transfusion; the Pope was on hand to offer his prayers and sympathy to AIDS victims in San Francisco. Sitting near Brendan today was Sister Ann Clare Johnson, a 30-year-old nun from San Jose, Calif., who has been diagnosed as having terminal cancer.
  Beatification is granted after the Vatican has determined that the nominee has produced a miracle. Sainthood is conferred if another miracle is certified as having occurred after beatification.
  Father Moholy stopped short of expressing hope for a miracle today. ''It is not that we are expecting some dramatic manifestation right on the spot,'' he said just before the papal service, ''but you need confidence as well faith to get a miracle and attending the service might give these people greater confidence when they pray to Father Serra.''
  He added: ''We hope the beatification will inspire a storm of prayer that will move God to grant that one more miracle Father Serra still needs to become a saint. That's the idea - it is not a gimmick.''
  Also in the audience was Sister Mary Boniface Dyrda, 72, of St. Louis, who prayed to Father Serra in 1960 and recovered from what had been diagnosed as lupus, a connective tissue disease. A team of doctors examined her case and last year pronounced her cure miraculous.