Father Greg Adolf, a member of the Kino Heritage Society, recently spoke about Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, a 17th-century Jesuit priest who founded many missions in Arizona. 

"As he [Padre Kino] came to this area in 1687 and began his ministry of 25 years—almost to the day—he established 24 missions in this area," Adolf said in a video posted this week on YouTube. "But he made a number of important exploratory journeys and touched a lot of different Native American tribes by his presence and by his openness to them and his genuine respect for them and their culture and their wisdom."

Kino established many religious missions in Northern Sonora and Southern Arizona, a release on tucson.com said. He was born in Italy in 1645 and passed away in Sonora on March 15, 1711. The Kino Heritage Society is paying respects to him on the anniversary of his death. 

"He was able to establish these communities, evangelize the area, establish these communities of interaction and interface and did it in a very peaceful way," Adolf said in the video. "One of the things that he did that's most important is the introduction of European agricultural techniques and livestock and crops into this area. … But he also received what the native peoples had, and their own traditions, and their own food traditions, and their own use of the desert plants here, he loved. They shared."

Spanish settlers resented Kino for his work with and defense of Native Americans in the area, a report on Jesuits.org said. The Spanish settlers used native people for slave labor, forcing them to work in mines. Thomas Olmsted, the Bishop of Phoenix, called Padre Kino a "foundational figure" in the history of the state of Arizona. 

Rosie Garcia, president of the Kino Heritage Society, told tucson.com that Kino's legacy lives on through the work of the Kino Border Initiative, which provides shelter and advocacy for migrants. 

The Kino Border Initiative's mission is "to promote US/Mexico border and immigration policies that affirm the dignity of the human person and a spirit of bi-national solidarity through: direct humanitarian assistance and accompaniment with migrants; social and pastoral education with communities on both sides of the border; participation in collaborative networks that engage in research; and advocacy to transform local, regional and national immigration policies," the group's website said. 

The process of Kino's canonization began in the 1960s; and in 2020, Pope Francis declared Kino "venerable," which is a step closer to sainthood.

"We like to speak about Padre's 'extending the table'—he knew how to extend the table for all," Adolf said in the video.