We look forward to reading the Department of Interior’s 106-page report, and hope it becomes a tool that leads to reconciliation, peace and many years of friendship between Native and non-native Americans.
It is evident that we need to recognize the suffering of indigenous people in the United States and to take a clear-eyed look at the history of the Church and Native people in our own diocese. Openly facing these facts may not be easy but are necessary to bring healing and dialogue to our community of all the people of the Upper Peninsula and United States.
At the beginning of our diocese, our first chief shepherd, Bishop Frederic Baraga, was fluent in native dialects of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As a priest ministering in the Upper Great Lakes, his concern for preserving the languages and to provide help those who would follow him in ministry, led him to write a dictionary along with a grammar of the Ojibwe language. He also wrote prayer books in the native dialects so the native people could pray in their own tongue. When ordained bishop of the Diocese of Marquette (Sault Ste. Marie at the time) he wrote his first pastoral letter in both Chippewa and English.
While this was our beginning, it does not mean that mistakes were never made over the years that have caused pain to Native Americans. As one means to address this, a preliminary review of diocesan records to find the facts of the diocese’s previous involvement with Native American communities regarding orphanages and schools was released March 25, 2022. Findings show that schools and orphanages in the Diocese of Marquette were operated as a social safety net rather than as a Native American Boarding School as defined by the Department of Interior.
We look forward to a new beginning of friendship and mutual respect with our Native American brothers and sisters of the Upper Peninsula. We ask the intercession of St. Kateri Tekakwitha to guide us in truth and peace.