Junipero Serra's burial site hit by vandals days after he was made a saint

Just days after controversial Catholic missionary Fr. Junipero Serra was canonized by Pope Francis, vandals targeted his final resting place, damaging statues and gravestones at the Carmel Mission in California.

Paint was splattered across the cemetery and basilica, and "Saint of Genocide" was written on a headstone, the Los Angeles Times reports. Carmel Police say the vandalism took place Saturday night or early Sunday morning, and Sgt. Luke Powell said the incident is being investigated as a hate crime because the perpetrators targeted "specifically the headstones of people of European descent, and not Native American descent."

Serra brought Catholicism to what is now California in the 1700s, establishing nine missions from San Diego to San Francisco. He believed the Native Americans living in the area were heathens in need of being saved, and baptized thousands; those who tried to leave the missions were flogged. Historians cannot agree on whether Serra participated in the violence. On Wednesday, Pope Francis said at the canonization ceremony that Serra "sought to defend the dignity of the native community."

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