Ruling on abuses committed in boarding schools, American Catholic bishops consider new actions to help Native Americans

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — U.S. bishops want to assure Native Catholics that they need not feel torn between their Native identity and their Catholic identity.

“You don’t have to be one or the other. You are both. Your cultural embodiment of the faith is a gift to the Church,” according to a draft obtained by The Associated Press of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ new guidelines for serving indigenous Catholics.

In the works for several years, the document has been supplemented as new details have emerged over the past two years about the widespread abuse of Indigenous children over several decades in Catholic boarding schools.

Titled “Keeping Christ’s Sacred Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry,” the document will be submitted for approval at this week’s USCCB meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.

It is intended to help bishops “refocus and reinvigorate ministry to America’s indigenous populations,” said Archbishop Chad Zielinski, chairman of the USCCB subcommittee on Native American affairs, who introduced the draft. frame Thursday afternoon.

This “gives form to ideas that Indigenous Catholic leaders have been expressing for several years in listening sessions sponsored by the subcommittee,” he said.

The proposed pastoral framework, created with input from Indigenous Catholics, is not intended to be a comprehensive, universal guideline on ministry to the broad spectrum of Indigenous Catholics. Rather, they are guidance that can be adapted by dioceses, clergy, and laity to fit the diverse cultural contexts of the people they serve. It covers everything from evangelism and sacred music to boarding schools, marriage and family.

Native Americans make up about 3.5% of U.S. Catholics, and more than 350 parishes are home to a majority of natives, according to USCCB statistics.

By praying, listening and seeking healing and reconciliation, the bishops, in the new version, commit to revitalizing their indigenous Catholic ministry.

This relationship has been strained by the Catholic Church’s involvement in past trauma that affected Native people, including operating at least 80 of the more than 500 government-funded Native boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. The schools were part of a federal program of forced assimilation that tore children from their families and suppressed their culture.

The draft pastoral framework recognizes the role of the Church and apologizes for failing to care for indigenous Catholics who felt abandoned because Church leaders ignored their unique cultural needs.

“Healing and reconciliation can only take place when the Church recognizes the wounds inflicted on its Indigenous children and humbly listens to their experiences,” the draft pastoral framework states, and adds that these efforts should be led by Indigenous communities.

The majority of boarding schools were run by the government, but Protestant and Catholic churches operated many of them.

Conditions varied at the schools, which some former students described as dangerous, unsanitary, and scenes of physical or sexual violence. Other former students remember their school years as positive times of learning, friendship and extracurricular activities. Indigenous groups point out that even the best schools were part of a project to assimilate children – what many indigenous groups call cultural genocide.

“Fostering dialogue and engaging in other efforts to reconcile involvement remains an important USCCB priority on the issue of boarding school accountability as we support impacted communities on their path to healing,” said said USCCB spokesperson Chieko Noguchi.

A recent Washington Post report found that sexual abuse of Native children by clergy was pervasive at 22 Catholic boarding schools in the United States. At least 122 priests, sisters and brothers have been accused of sexually abusing children in their care. The USCCB worked with the outlet’s journalists, Noguchi said, “because we agree that this painful story needs to be told.” This story is part of the ongoing process of uncovering what happened and better understanding how we can work toward healing.

Bishops are expected to vote Friday morning on whether to adopt the final version.

Basil Brave Heart, a survivor of the Oglala Lakota boarding school on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, said any pastoral plan must draw on the wisdom found in indigenous spirituality and languages.

“If they’re going to do this, I think they need a lot of communication with Native Americans,” he said.

He spoke about his experiences as a boarding student at Holy Rosary Mission in Pine Ridge, where he said he was forbidden from speaking his native language and had his long hair, considered sacred, cut. He currently participates in Lakota spiritual practices while attending Catholic mass.

He said Catholic churches on the reservation are often empty and that if the church wants to “keep native people in the congregation, I don’t have the answer, but one of the things it has to do is change the liturgy.”

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Associated Press reporter Peter Smith in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

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Holly Meyer, Associated Press