I'LL BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW......

 ....... that a  Native American Chief and Medicine Man is in the process of being canonized by the Vatican?

As a person interested in such things as Native American spirituality, I am reading the book pictured below. This extraordinary man was somehow able to bridge the spiritual traditions of the Oglala Lakota and the religion of Roman Catholics, without losing respect for either.  

What attracted me to this man as well, is the fact that several years ago, I led the priests and their bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, in their annual convocation. Our meeting was close to the South Dakota border and close to Mount Marty College in Yankton in the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

As a student and later a staff member of St. Meinrad Seminary, I was familiar with the first Abbot of St. Meinrad, Martin Marty, who had come from their founding abbey in Switzerland. In 1876 the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions sent him to Dakota Territory. In 1879 he was appointed Vicar Apostolic for Dakota Territory. In 1889 he was named Bishop of Sioux Falls, the first diocese of the state of South Dakota at the time.

On Tuesday, June 25, 2019, at St. Agnes Catholic Church, Manderson, SD, Bishop Robert Gruss of Rapid City SD, presided at a Mass celebrating the completion of the diocesan phase of the Cause for Canonization of Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk. At the conclusion of Mass, the final documents were signed, sealed and bound with a red cord, readied to be taken to the Congregation for Causes of Saints in Rome, Italy. Fr. Louis Escalante, the Roman Postulator for the Cause, will deliver the final documents.

Below, Bishop Robert Gruss prays at the grave of Servant of God, Chief Nicholas Black Elk,  with some of his Native American parishioners.

 

The Official Canonization Prayer 

MY MIXED AND CONFLICTING EMOTIONS

I have many, many mixed and conflicting emotions about all this! The more I learn about how the Native American Tribes of this country were treated by European Christians in their expansion across this country, the more sinful and tragic it appears to me, especially when I learn more about how they were often forced to embrace a white Christian culture and religion, accept the seizing of their ancestral lands and give up their own languages, cultures and spiritualities. 

I have the same conflicting emotions about how black people from Africa, forced to come here as slaves, had to give up their own cultures and spiritualities. 

The best I can do is to try to learn the truth of their stories, share what I learn the best I can, give them the respect and honor they deserve and, in all honesty, call a sin a sin! I am a Christian, but I am not a Christian Nationalist - one who is determined to force my religion onto the people of other religions in this country. I believe that Christianity is a religion of invitation and lived example, not of  force and exploitation. I believe in the separation of church and state as the best way to honor the many religious traditions of this country.