While Pope Francis apologizes in Canada, tribal leaders suspend Christian missions at Pine Ridge Res

While Pope Francis apologizes in Canada, tribal leaders suspend Christian missions at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
Kevin ClarkeJuly 29, 2022


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Pope Francis prays at the Ermineskin Cree Nation Cemetery before meeting with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities at Maskwacis, Alberta, July 25, 2022. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Update: The tribal council voted on July 27 to rescind a motion passed on July 26 that had suspended mission and church activity on the Pine Ridge reservation. Council members explained that many Pine Ridge residents contacted them concerned that the new order meant that regular church activities—wedding, funerals, Bible study—had to be halted. After discussion about creating a 90-day compliance period for the registration of existing missions and churches and the exclusion of Native American churches or faith groups from the ordinance altogether, the council voted to simply rescind the original motion.

Images of Pope Francis meditating before the graves of Indigenous children who perished at a church-run residential school evoked remorse for past wrongs and hope for reconciliation in the future this week. But even as the pope made efforts toward healing in Canada, back in the United States a passionate discussion began at a tribal council meeting on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. It offered a poignant reminder that injuries are still being visited on Indigenous people in North America by forces of Christian evangelization and cultural assimilation.

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In the wake of the controversy, all Christian missions on the reservation face new scrutiny. The Catholic legacy at Pine Ridge was noted with particular bitterness by another young Lakota woman who addressed the council before the vote. “Our nation is currently living in the aftermath of a cultural genocide that was committed by the Catholic Church and the U.S. government, who still need to be held accountable for their actions,” said Eleanor Ferguson, reading a statement on behalf of the International Indigenous Youth Council. “Our way of life has been under attack since Christopher Columbus set foot on Turtle Island and inserted the Doctrine of Discovery upon our Indigenous nations. The Doctrine of Discovery gave the church the authority to justify murdering and raping our women and children, colonizing and desecrating our sacred lands in the name of Jesus Christ. “Not one follower of the Catholic or Christian church has or will go to heaven until this vile genocide is fully acknowledged and ended.”



Ms. Ferguson faulted historical Catholic mission work, particularly its role in administering residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries, for beginning cycles of intergenerational trauma that continue to haunt the Oglala Sioux community, reflected today in the reservation’s high rates of suicide, drug addiction, intercommunal violence and hopelessness. “We’re at a point,” Ms. Ferguson said, “where we as a collective either revive our Lakota way of life or the next generations will lose it forever, which is why we are here to demand [that] the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribal council take immediate action against all churches and missionaries on our territory who are using impoverished children for financial gain. “We can no longer allow these people to operate on our territory until the church has been held accountable for the mass genocide they’ve committed against the Indigenous nation.”

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/07/29/suspend-christian-missions-pine-ridge-243440