SW News: The mayor of Los Angeles in the US has announced that the park where the statue of St. Junipero Serra was toppled will no longer be named after the saint. On Indigenous Peoples' Day, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the park will be called La Plaza Park.

St Serra was a Spanish Frannciscan missionary priest who evangelized what is now the US state of California in in the 18th century. Born on November 24, 1713, St Serra was ordained a priest in 1738 in the Franciscan Order and his apostolate included working among the native Indians of North America. In 2015, he was canonized by Pope Francis, which stoked a controversy. Sharp criticism started coming up against the Saint, as he was considered as someone who destroyed and wiped away the culture and traditions of the Native Americans. St Serra's statue in Los Angeles was knocked down by protestors last summer during the Black Lives Matter protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer.

In the late 18th century, mission centers were established by St Serra across California. However, modern historians accuse him of paving the way for colonization and imposing Christianity on the Native Americans, and subjecting them to slavery and abuse. However, on September 13, in an article in the Wall Street Journal, Archbishops Jose Gomez of Los Angeles and Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco defended the missionary saying he led an exemplary life and always stressed the need to protect indigenous people's humanity, especially indigenous women from slavery and abuse. They also said that the saint's name was informally attached to the park.

Mayor Garcetti said, "Los Angeles is a city of belonging that takes responsibility for the mistakes we've made in the past." He said, "Our indigenous brothers and sisters deserve justice, and today we take a step toward delivering both greater cultural sensitivity and spaces for Angelenos to gather and perform their traditional ceremonies." He also apologized to the indigenous people and told them that the land would always belong to them.