Indians Say Preacher Is Unfit for Sainthood
塞拉神父封聖 遭遇阻力
By Carol Pogash

SAN FRANCISCO – For generations, fourth graders in California’s schools built models of church missions to celebrate the Reverend Junipero Serra and the religious communities he established along the West Coast in the late 1700s. In January, Pope Francis announced plans to canonize Father Serra, putting “the evangelizer of the West in the United States” closer to sainthood.
許多世代以來，加州學校四年級學生建造教會的教區模型，以紀念備受尊崇的朱尼佩洛．塞拉，和他1700年代末期沿西岸建立的宗教社群。今年1月，天主教教宗方濟各宣布計畫為塞拉神父封聖，使這位「在美國西部傳福音的教士」更接近聖品。

But these days, the pious preacher who brought Christianity to the American Indians is viewed in less benevolent terms. Prominent Native Americans see Father Serra as far from saintly. Indian historians blame Father Serra for the suppression of their culture and the premature deaths at the missions of thousands of their ancestors.
然而當下這位把基督教傳給美國印第安人的虔誠教士風評可沒那麼好。德高望重的美國原住民認為塞拉神父絕對稱不上聖潔。印第安人史學家怪罪他使他們的文化受壓制，以及各教區內他們成千上萬的祖先早死。

“I had high hopes for this pope, who has been making some very pro-social-justice statements,” said Deborah A. Miranda, an Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Indian and a professor in Virinia. “Serra did not just bring us Christianity. He imposed it, giving us no choice in the matter. He did incalculable damage to a whole culture,”
歐隆科斯塔諾埃塞倫印第安人、維吉尼亞州的大學教授黛博拉．米蘭達說：「我對這位教宗期望很高，他發表了些非常支持社會正義的聲明。塞拉不是只把基督教義傳給我們，而是強加於我們，在這件事上不讓我們選擇。他對整個文化的傷害難以估計。」

Born in Majorca in 1713, Father Serra joined the Franciscan order in 1730. He became a theological professor before relinquishing his comfortable life to evangelize in the Americas. From 1769 to 1835, 90,000 Indians were baptized from San Diego to San Francisco. Once baptized, they were not allowed to leave the missions, and those who did escape were rounded up by soldiers and returned.
塞拉神父1713年生於馬略卡島，1730年加入方濟會。曾任神學教授，後放棄舒適生活到美洲傳教。1769到1835年間，從聖地牙哥到舊金山有9萬印第安人受洗。一旦受洗就不准離開教會，逃跑者會被士兵圍捕遣返。

The Indians were forced to shed their languages, dress, religion, food and marriage customs. Thousands died from exposure to European diseases to which they had no immunity. While there were 310,000 Indians in 1769 in what is now California, only about 50,000 remained a hundred years later, according to research at the University of California.
印第安人被迫脫離他們的語言、服飾、宗教、食物和婚姻習俗。成千上萬人因感染歐洲疾病而死，他們對這些疾病沒有抵抗力。根據加州大學的研究，現今的加州1769年有31萬印第安人，百年後約只剩5萬人。

Native Americans have also complained about what they call the romanticization of the missions’ true history by schools, churches and the news media. They were especially upset when, in 1986, the Catholic Diocese of Monterey, California, where Father Serra is buried at the Carmel Mission, released a report that found no evidence of Indian mistreatment.
美國原住民也抱怨學校、教會和新聞媒體美化傳教團的真正歷史。尤其讓他們氣憤的是，1986年埋葬塞拉神父的卡梅爾教堂所在的加州蒙特利主教區發布報告，表示未發現印第安人受不當對待的證據。

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco acknowledged the coercive environment. But missionaries taught school and farming, he said.
舊金山總主教薩爾瓦多．柯狄里昂承認當年存在脅迫的環境。不過，他說，傳教士教導辦學校和務農。

“European powers were going to discover this continent and settle here” he said. “Were the indigenous people better off with the missionaries or without the missionaries? I would say they were better off with the missionaries.”
他說：「歐洲強權就要發現這個大陸並來定居。有傳教士，還是沒有傳教士讓原住民過得更好？我會說，有傳教士讓他們更好。」

Mission Dolores, in San Francisco’s Mission District, was founded by Father Serra in 1776. The simple, white church abuts a cemetery of tombstones of people with Spanish and Irish names. In the middle of the courtyard is a statue of a pensive Father Serra. On a recent day, two cousins, both Ohlone Indians and Catholics, sat nearby. Andrew Galvan, the mission’s curator, said that while he recognized that Indians were mistreated, “my family first became Christian” at the mission. Father Serra, he added, “remains my inspiration.”
位在舊金山教區的都勒教堂，是塞拉神父於1776年創建。這座簡單的白色教堂毗鄰一座墓園，墓碑上有西班牙和愛爾蘭的名字。庭院中央是座塞拉神父沉思的雕像。最近某日兩個表兄弟坐在旁邊，都是歐隆族人，也都是天主教徒。教會管理人安德魯．蓋爾文說，雖然他知道印第安人受到不當對待，「我的家族最早就是在這教會成為基督徒的，塞拉神父仍激勵著我。」

His younger cousin, Vincent Medina, was less forgiving. Canonizing “the leader of the disastrous, genocidal California mission system is a way that the church further legitimizes the pain and suffering of Ohlone and countless other California Indians,” he said.
他的表弟文生．梅迪納較不願原諒。他說：「為這個悲慘的和種族屠殺的加州傳教體系的領袖封聖，是教會進一步把歐隆族人和其他無數加州印第安人的痛苦和磨難合法化的方式。」

Robert M. Senkewicz, a history professor at Santa Clara University, just south of San Francisco, said the history of the missions had been somewhat distorted.
舊金山南邊聖塔克拉拉大學的歷史教授羅伯．聖克維茲說，傳教團的歷史多少被扭曲了。

“These were largely Indian communities,” he said. “The way contemporary missions are presented, the Indians are absent.”
他說：「這些大多是印第安人的社群，當代教區呈現的方式，少了印第安人。」

Nicole Lim, of the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center in Santa Rosa, said: “When I hear the pope has done this, it makes me think that people aren’t ready to accept the truth we have. It’s disheartening.”
加州聖羅莎印第安人博物館和文化中心的妮可．林說：「聽到教宗這麼做，讓我想到人們還沒準備接受我們掌握的真相。令人洩氣。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/us/to-some-indians-in-california-father-serra-is-far-from-a-saint.html

2015-03-10聯合報/G9版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 田思怡譯 原文參見紐時週報十一版右