8 ■ OCTOBER 2012
NEWEARTH
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha’s canonization:
Sainthood could mean native Catholics no longer ‘invisible’ Continued from page 1 group of clergy and lay people from the Fargo Diocese attending the Oct. 21 canonization ceremony on Rome, where Kateri will be named a saint with seven of her spiritual comrades.
Lifetime of prayers Father Charles “Chuck” Leute, pastor of Seven Dolors Catholic Mission in Fort Totten, also will be among the pilgrims. He hadn’t counted on going initially, he says, having already attended her 1980 beatification ceremony. “I would have been okay not going to the canonization, but my family helped with a plane ticket,” he says, adding that his community also surprised him by taking up a collection for the rest of the funds. “I’ve been praying for this almost all my life,” he says. “My whole ministry has been with the Native people.” The seeds for Father Leute’s affinity toward this soon-to-be saint were planted in childhood. Born into a family of American Indian heritage on his father’s side, Father Leute was raised with a keen concern for the indigenous people. Early in his priesthood, he worked with the Jesuits from the Pine Ridge Reservation for 18 years, and served the American Indian population in intercity Minneapolis and St. Paul for a year following a sabbatical, finally arriving at Fort Totten in 1987. He views Blessed Kateri as someone with the potential to revive the faith of many, as well as bring American Indians, who have been “rather invisible in the scheme of things,” to the consciousness of others. “Her canonization also will allow the Native community to recognize that one of its own is now honored by the Church, and bring them into awareness that they are part of the Church in another way,” he says. Her example of maintaining her faith through tremendous opposition can inspire all Christians. “The steadfastness she showed, and in taking up the cross, it’s a challenge each person has but especially for our Native community.” To prepare for the big event, he says, his parish has been saying special prayers composed and published specifically for Blessed Kateri’s canonization. “Blessed Kateri is one who, though she didn’t face the dysfunction we have now, opened her heart to the message of the Gospel and gave herself wholeheartedly to following it,” he says.
Conferences ‘healing’ If not for health limitations, Deacon Tony McDonald of the Spirit Lake Nation says he, too, would be on the plane heading for Rome. He first learned about Blessed Kateri through Benedictine Father Daniel Madlin, who used to talk about her frequently. Then, in 1982, he had a chance to attend his first Tekakwitha Conference in Spokane. “They move it around every year and it’s been a great thing for our people,” he says. “I’ve really enjoyed coming together with 2,500 other Indians, all
showing our prayer life.” Mary Lou still remembers the conference in Phoenix in 1987, which was attended by Pope John Paul II. “It was so thoroughly awesome to be seated in that stadium with him, and he said so many things to us Native Americans that were so healing for us,” she says. Among his utterances that touched her: “God the Father gave you your culture and your traditions as a gift, and if you keep Jesus Christ in your center, you’ll never go wrong.” Another memorable conference took place in 1989, when Father John Cavanaugh of the Spirit Lake Nation was ordained a deacon at the event, a year before his priestly ordination. Father Cavanaugh, who grew up at St. Michael’s Indian Mission, says many consider the mission the reservation parish that started the conference because of its connection to the priests who staffed it in 1939. “(The conference) has evolved over time from a gathering of missionary priests to the present model of evangelization of the native cultures in the Americas as well as devotion and prayer for the canonization of Kateri,” he says.
Challenges today Deacon McDonald adds that it hasn’t always been easy for the American Indian people to find a balance between traditional and Christian approaches to life and faith. “When I was growing up, we were 90 percent Catholic,” he notes. “It’s been in recent years here where Indians are making a preference to the old traditional ways. Which is okay — I respect that — but I’m ordained and I already got my Jesus.” He maintains it’s possible to attach to both cultural tradition and Christianity without giving up either. “We’re praying for our people to convert, to come back to God.” Father Leute agrees. “God didn’t create any of us to be anything other than what we are,” he says. “We have to apply the faith and live it as a Dakota person, or whatever we are, so that it gives evidence of the fact that God is everywhere, providing the means of holiness to each one of us within our cultural framework.” All who are endeared to her believe Blessed Kateri, as St. Kateri, could help inspire a transformation. “I heard an old Indian talk one time, and he said God gave us everything we need to have a good life, but we choose to go outside of what he gave us, and that’s when our troubles start,” Deacon McDonald says. “Kateri stayed with what was given her, and when she died, even her smallpox went away. I hope I live long enough to see the change in our people (as a result of her canonization).” Indeed, even before her forthcoming sainthood was made official, according to Mary Lou, Blessed Kateri was already bringing together the Native people and offering hope. “There is so much pride for us Native Americans in saying, ‘You know, she’s one of us,’” she says. “We take real honor and pride in what’s happening, and feel a real gut-wrenching thanksgiving that this is really happening.”
Father John Cavanaugh displays a statue of Kateri Tekakwitha, who will be named a saint on Oct. 21 in Rome. The statue, a gift from Lowell and Carol Sibels, is currently housed at one of two parishes he serves, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Reynolds, though he hopes to eventually bring it to St. Michael’s Indian Mission, where he attended grade school.
New saints equal new role models for people in America and around the world, priest says Continued from page 1 Washington state suffering from a flesheating disease. Approximately 500 people will travel from all corners of this nation to honor this saint of Native American origin and see her raised to the altar of the Roman Catholic Church.
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eople around the world are always seeking examples for new models of holiness. From these models we are able to see through their example evangelization in action. Canonization identifies a particular person, but more importantly, it opens up examples, roads, insights and other means to reach out to the divine through the saints’ ways of living that may in turn show others the way so that we become evangelizers. Lumen Gentium (one of the documents of Vatican II) affirms this: “It is not only through their example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; rather we seek, by devotion to them, to exercise that bond of fraternal charity which unites and strengthens the whole Church in the Spirit (cf. Eph 4:1-6). Just as Christian charity brings us closer to Christ on our earthly journey, so does the communion of saints join the People of God to Christ, the fountainhead of all grace and life, on their eternal journey.” (LG 50)
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he other men and women to be raised by the Catholic Church as saints this month include: ■ Jesuit Father Jacques Berthieu, who was born in Polminhac, France, and was martyred June 8, 1896, in Ambiatibe, Madagascar. ■ Peter Calungsod, a lay catechist born in Cebu, Philippines, and martyred April 2, 1672, in Guam. ■ Father Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth for men and the Humble Servants of the Lord for women. He died in 1913. ■ Carmen Salles y Barangueras, the Spanish founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. She worked with disadvantaged girls and prostitutes and saw that early education was essential for helping young women. She died in 1911. ■ Anna Schaffer, a lay German woman who wanted to be a missionary, but could not because of a succession of physical accidents and diseases. She accepted her infirmity as a way of sanctification. Her grave has been a pilgrimage site since her death in 1925.
Father John Cavanaugh was born at Fort Totten and raised as the oldest of nine children on the Spirit Lake Nation near Devils Lake. He currently serves at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Reynolds and St. Jude in Thompson and is the director of the 2014 Tekakwitha Conference that returns to the Fargo Diocese for its 75th anniversary.