{"id":33906,"date":"2022-04-19T17:43:48","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T22:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/churches-face-boarding-school-reckoning\/"},"modified":"2022-04-19T17:43:49","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T22:43:49","slug":"churches-face-boarding-school-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/churches-face-boarding-school-reckoning\/","title":{"rendered":"Churches face boarding-school reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>

Churches face boarding-school reckoning <\/strong><\/p>\n

By Peter Smith<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis\u2019 historic apology <\/a>for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of operating such schools.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Provided by Associated Press Indigenous Schools Churches<\/p>\n

Church schools are likely to feature prominently in a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior, led by the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, due to be released later this month.<\/a> The report, prompted by last year\u2019s discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in Canada, will focus on the loss of life and the enduring traumas the U.S. system inflicted on <\/a>Indigenous children from the 19th to mid-20th centuries.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Provided by Associated Press FILE \u2013 Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks during a ceremony at the U.S. Army\u2019s Carlisle Barracks, in Carlisle, Pa., Wednesday, July 14, 2021. The disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania were headed home to Rosebud Sioux tribal lands in South Dakota on Wednesday after a ceremony returning them to relatives. A report from the U.S. Department of the Interior, led by the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, Haaland, due to be released in April 2022, will focus on the loss of life and the enduring traumas of the U.S. boarding school system, in which Native Americans were taken to hundreds of government- and church-run facilities from the 19th to mid-20th centuries. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke, File)<\/p>\n

From Episcopalians to Quakers to Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma, faith groups have either started or intensified efforts in the past year to research and atone for their prior roles in the boarding school system, which Native children were forced to attend \u2014 cutting them off from their families, tribes and traditions.<\/p>\n

While the pontiff\u2019s April 1 apology was addressed to Indigenous groups from Canada, people were listening south of the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn apology is the best way to start any conversation,\u201d said Roy Callison, a Catholic deacon and Cherokee Nation member helping coordinate the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project, which includes listening sessions for those affected by the boarding school legacy. \u201cThat\u2019s the first step to trying to get healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Provided by Associated Press FILE \u2013 Members of the Assembly of First Nations perform in St. Peter\u2019s Square at the Vatican, Thursday, March 31, 2022. Pope Francis has welcomed First Nations delegations to the Vatican. As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis\u2019 historic 2022 apology for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of helping operate such schools. (AP Photo\/Alessandra Tarantino, File)<\/p>\n

In his meeting with Canada\u2019s Indigenous delegations, Francis asked forgiveness \u201cfor the role that a number of Catholics \u2026 had in all these things that wounded you, in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Provided by Associated Press FILE \u2013 A group of youths lead a group drumming and singing at sunset outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, to honor the 215 children whose remains have been discovered buried near the facility, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Friday, June 4, 2021. As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis\u2019 historic 2022 apology for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of helping operate such schools.<\/p>\n

Francis \u201cdid something really important, which is name the importance of being indignant at this history,\u201d said Maka Black Elk, executive director of truth and healing for Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

That history \u201cis shameful, and it is not something we should accept,\u201d said Black Elk, who is Oglala Lakota.<\/p>\n

Red Cloud, affiliated with the Catholic Jesuit order, was for generations a boarding school for Lakota children. It\u2019s now a day school incorporating Lakota leadership, language and traditions. Black Elk is guiding a reckoning process that includes archival research and hearing the stories of former students.<\/a> Red Cloud was known as Holy Rosary Indian Mission when Lakota journalist Tim Giago wrote a book called Children Left Behind about it. When journalists doing a review on Giago\u2019s book called the school to ask questions about what he had written, they were often told by the staff at Red Cloud that Giago never attended the school. Giago himself was blackballed by the school.<\/p>\n

Canada underwent a much-publicized Truth and Reconciliation process in recent years. The issue gained unprecedented attention last year after a researcher using ground-penetrating radar reported finding about 200 unmarked probable burial sites at a former school in British Columbia.<\/p>\n

That discovery, followed by others across Canada, prompted Haaland to commission her department\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis history in the United States has not been addressed in the same way it has been addressed in Canada,\u201d Black Elk said. The Interior report \u201cwill be an important first step about the work that needs to happen in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Church leaders are getting ready. The report \u201cwill likely bring to light some very troubling information,\u201d said a letter circulated last fall to members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from two colleagues who chaired committees related to the issue. The letter urged bishops to build relationships with local Indigenous communities and engage \u201cin a real and honest dialogue about reactions to the report and what steps are needed to go forward together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conditions varied at boarding schools in the United States, with some described as unsafe, unsanitary and scenes of physical or sexual abuse. Other former students recall their school years as positive times of learning, friendship and extracurricular activities.<\/p>\n

Indigenous groups note that even the better schools were part of a project to assimilate children into a predominately white, Christian society and break down their tribal identities, customs and languages \u2014 what many Indigenous groups call a cultural genocide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very process of boarding schools is violent and damaging,\u201d said Bryan Rindfleisch, an expert in Native American history at Marquette University who is helping Catholics in Oklahoma research their school legacy.<\/p>\n

There were at least 367 boarding schools across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a Minneapolis-based advocacy group.<\/p>\n

Most were government-run; many others were run by Catholic and Protestant churches.<\/p>\n

The national healing coalition called Pope Francis\u2019 comments a historic first step, but urged the Vatican to repatriate Indigenous artifacts in its museum collections and called on religious organizations to open their school archives.<\/p>\n

In listening sessions held through the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project, many participants told positive stories of school experiences, Callison said, though the church is committed to documenting the traumatic ones too. \u201cYou\u2019re going to hear things you don\u2019t want to hear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The project will also include archival research and individual interviews with those affected. At least 11 Catholic boarding schools operated in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get to the truth before we can deal with whatever hurt or celebrate whatever success\u201d the schools achieved, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley said.<\/p>\n

Several church groups \u2014 including Quakers, Methodists and some Catholic religious orders \u2014 are backing pending legislation in Congress that would go beyond the Interior report. It would create a truth and healing commission, modeled on Canada\u2019s, to investigate the boarding school legacy.<\/p>\n

The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends \u2014 a regional group of congregations \u2014 issued an apology last year for Quakers\u2019 historic sponsorship of such schools, acknowledging they were undertaken with \u201cspiritual and cultural arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply sorry for our part in the vast suffering caused by this system and the continuing effects,\u201d the New England group said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important for Quakers to accept such responsibility, said Paula Palmer, a Quaker from Colorado whose research has identified about 30 Native American boarding and day schools that were run by Quakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe yearly meetings voted to support, operate and finance\u201d the schools, she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really the yearly meetings who have the responsibility to respond. They were the ones who also participated in the whole project of forced assimilation of Indigenous children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States has hired an archival researcher to document its own boarding school history.<\/p>\n

The order is \u201ccommitted to examining and sharing the truth of our history, even where that is difficult,\u201d said the Rev. Ted Penton, secretary of the Jesuit conference\u2019s Office of Justice and Ecology.<\/p>\n

The Episcopal Church\u2019s General Convention in July is expected to vote on a statement that would \u201cacknowledge the intergenerational trauma caused by genocide, colonialism\u201d and the operation of boarding schools and \u201cother systems based on white supremacy.\u201d Some Lakota believe the Convention should invite former boarding school students like Giago to speak to their audience.<\/p>\n

The convention will also consider authorizing a \u201ccomprehensive and complete investigation\u201d of the church\u2019s operation of such schools. The proposals came from a group appointed by denominational leaders.<\/p>\n

Such measures are strong, but local dioceses also need to research their own histories and advocate for Indigenous peoples, said the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett, Washington. Taber-Hamilton, whose heritage includes the Shackan First Nation of Canada, is an Episcopal Church representative to the worldwide Anglican Indigenous Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, and here\u2019s some money,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWe first have to do some very hard work of listening to the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Churches face boarding-school reckoning<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>

Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/div>

Churches face boarding-school reckoning By Peter Smith \u00a0 As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis\u2019 historic apology for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of operating such schools. \u00a9 Provided by Associated Press Indigenous <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
Shared by Native Sun News Today<\/a> April 19, 2022<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1541,"featured_media":33907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5627],"tags":[10105,6658],"class_list":["post-33906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resource-directory-blog","tag-archive","tag-more-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}