The Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha (Pt 3.)

  Kateri Tekakwitha

 

I watched a replay on EWTN (Pacific Rim broadcast) and well, it was good BUT. Let’s say it was visually stunning and rather like what you see when you watch WYD on TV. But something was missing and I only later, after having watched another series of videos uploaded on YouTube by Anishinabe SC, that what I had an inkling was missing WAS actually missing –  80% of the music! That’s one thing you don’t ever leave out of streamings, videos or telecasts of events like this because it detracts from the monumentous occasion of these events. Can you imagine what your wedding day would be like without one or another of the essential ingredients for making this day special?

Anishinabe SC did a really good job of following up the events and basically is a good avenue to watch what you may have missed out on while watching it on EWTN. Perhaps EWTN viewers in the United States and Canada got a better reception which included everything while we in the Pac Rim got the replay with a couple of techy errors that considerably numbed the sound quality and variety. Just look up the Anishinabe SC channel on YouTube to find all the videos from the day.

Here are some of the fabulous photos that were taken by the media agencies who covered the story as it happened:

 

Pilgrims at St Peters Square, Rome.

 

 

 

 

Painting of Kateri.

 

 

 

 

The Finkbonner family – their youngest member, Jake, received a miracle cure from Kateri for a leprosy-like condition deemed medically incurable.

 

 

 

 

Someone in the crowd holds a beautiful white flower up for Kateri.

 

 

 

 

Two nuns in prayer for Kateri.

 

 

 

 

Some of the traditional community back in Kahnawake, Canada, at a solidarity mass for Kateri.

 

 

 

 

Tapestry of Kateri in St. Peter’s Square, Rome.

The Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha (Pt 2.)

  Kateri Tekakwitha

 

I love Kateri! She’s just a marvel in our world today although she has now physically gone Home to the place where her ancestors are. Her life spoke the truth of how inter-cultural dialogue can foster meaningful and healthier relationships between people from different life-experiences. Although as I’ve probably shared with you before, I’m not a Catholic, but I still believe there is much good in what the institutional Church, despite its historical flaws, is doing now and can do in the future. I have to also acknowledge that if it weren’t for its influence in the world, we probably wouldn’t have the university education system we currently have and this is because this system was actually invented by the Roman Catholic Church. So all you people with tertiary degrees better think twice before castigating the very founders of the system that helped you earn your qualifications in the first place!

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this to those with fair hearts – to those with hearts that understand. I’m only saying this to and in view of those whose cynical and unredemptive statements about the founders of the tertiary education system have unfortunately tended to flood the comments sections of a great many electronically published news reports on the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha. Not that university education is everything by the way, but it does demonstrate an indisputable fact – that the university education system we have today has given so many opportunities for people to actually engage in interactive relationships that have the potential to bring about lasting results in the area of positive social transformation and if it wasn’t for the institutional Church inventing universities, we probably wouldn’t have them! One real solid example of how the Western university system has been reconfigured and reconceptualized in the light of indigenous epistemologies is the initiatives taken on by Haskell Indian Nations University, http://www.haskell.edu/ at providing culturally inspirational and relevant tertiary programs for students of Native American background or others who have some link with First Nations. Why I cite this example is because Haskell has been in the forefront of organizing some of the most effective and long-term focused environmental management initiatives right across the Unites States and has helped organise conferences where some of the strategic planning for these initiatives is born. This is truly wonderful because we have an international model-scape from which to draw, in the sense that such ways of educating future generations ought to be locally accessible on an international level and just as relevant to the specific conditions of those respective locales globe-wide. Indigenous people the world over can learn a lot from this pilot initiative by Haskell which is actually a combination of the Western university education system and traditional ways of acquiring and sharing knowledge.

The canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha is for me, something very special. Because as an indigenous person, it speaks volumes to me in terms of how far the institutional Church has come to making account for the injustices to indigenous people done by its complicit participation in the European feudal system. In the last fifty or so years, it has really come along way on its’ journey towards being a much truer advocate for the causes and plights of  those marginalized by the social and political injustices of  world systems that place the value of life (which encompasses the expression of both love and harmony in relationships) beneath the drive to succeed at what ever cost, the exaltation of the uncaring side of self, and the lust for both worldly power and material possessions. Although there are some like Alicia Cook (see previous post) who feel that this institution cannot really right the wrongs of the past just by one act of formal recognition, it must be said that in effect there have been  many historical acts of formal recognition by the institutional Church of indigenous people in a not too dissimilar way; although these, in light of  a less-than-holy historical track-record insofar as dishing out ironic political injustices in accordance with the whims of feudal monarchies is concerned, would appear to be a blatant contradiction. A contradiction in historical terms yes, but again in a rather different light – that of the Catholic Church’s redemptive consciousness emerging more fully in the now time, this contradiction is gradually being  ironed out. One of the most obvious but least understood parts of its’ historical act of formally recognising the sovereignty of indigenous people is the fact that this organization holds up (inadvertently or not) an indigenous culture, namely Christianity, as its prime example of how to live right. And further to this  – again inadvertently or not – it has already canonized many indigenous Christians outside of the United States of America, from its earliest days right up until now.

The issue needing to be more thoroughly acknowledged and understood is, (and this view I would say is shared by Doug George Kanentiio who speaks in accordance with this in the news report on Kateri – see previous post),  that the Roman Catholic Church is NOT the indigenous expression of Christianity – it isn’t the Native Christian community that Jesus Christ founded in Israel almost 2000 years ago. Rather, the Catholic Church supplanted this community when Constantine declared Christianity the “official religion” of the Roman Empire. Because of his role as emperor, he didn’t act in accordance with the traditional protocols of the Native Christian community of the time – his political oversight overlooked this and consequently we had  happen historically what has become known in academic parlance as “politicide” followed by “culturicide” of the Native Christian voice in the social re-organization of that time and place. Constantine’s administration had effectively appropriated aspects of Christian culture for its’ own purposes without first consulting the leaders and elders of the communities for protocols on how to co-exist peacefully with Christian culture, a culture that not too long before this, posed a seemingly insurmountable threat to the political expediency of the empire – all because Christianity wasn’t culturally compatible with typical Roman institutions. And now, the imperial government was determined to force it into being “compatible”. As a result, the indigenous Christian community voice was repressed altogether, silenced and forbidden from participation in the exercise of determining how this new climate of cultural ‘tolerance’ was going to pan out. This is how the institutional Church was born and how it made compromises with the value system it decided to take on as though it was its own. It was born largely independently of the original Christian community and effectively excluded this community from participation in decision-making because a hierarchy of state-officials had replaced them. This hierarchy was a little later on to become the officially recognised Magisterium of the Church – the canonical (officially endorsed) body of the clergy. How this shaped up had serious implications for traditional or native Christianity.

Now that Catholicism had replaced traditional Christian spirituality in the eyes of Roman imperial hegemony, this meant that the institutional church assumed a place that was in absolute accordance with the reigning political powers of the day and these powers effectively controlled the machinations of this newly constructed intellectual space. Not only was it an educational provider, administering its programs throughout the empire but it was also the political arbitrator for the feudal system. The latter situation is where the compromises spoken of by Doug Kanentiio are most pronounced. Why? Because feudalism is intrinsically at odds with Christianity. The true nature of Christianity is one of consensus decision-making, reciprocity in relationship to all life, and harmonious coexistence with others that emphasizes a love for life, peace, and freedom. The dignity of life as seen in the way God created the whole world inclusive of all who live and breathe in accordance with the laws of nature is at the center of human relationships with each other and all other creatures, and too, in the relationships of all other creatures with each other as well as with humans. A separation away from an intrinsic respect and love for the laws of nature is an act of departing away from the will of God. And many indigenous communities the world over will tell you that Western consumer society has done just that. It has divorced itself from the Divine plan and from living in accordance with the will of the Creator which is why it is pushing the boundaries set by Him through greed and avarice, cultural and environmental devastation and a blatant disregard for the sanctity of life in its copious valorization of vices such as lust, violence, and a general hardness of heart to in order to get what one wants should it involve pushing others out of the way or standing over them to do so.

And because of the historical legacies in this regard, I am so pleased to see that in our turbulent time where our world is being pushed into a direction that reflects more of the dominance of this secular system of disregard for Mother Earth and the sacredness of life, it is just as well, that the institutional Church is turning its heart towards the sun, towards the Son of Man, in a truer understanding and appreciation of what it really means to practice and uphold the integrity of life.

That is why it is important to see the positivity in this step towards more fulfillment on the path of reconciliation between the institutional Church and indigenous Christianity. Kateri is really a symbol of this much needed transition in building a far more compassionate and mutually beneficial relationship between the two. Although I may not really approve of the way some articles on the issue have tended to portray Kateri as Mohawk woman who “converted to Catholicism”, I applaud people for making an effort to share her story widely. That said, there is also a moral obligation for these people to be accurate and culturally sensitive in the way they go about doing this hence my disapproval of the statement that she “converted”. For she was always Christian, as was her own community – in the original sense of the name “Christian” rather than in the sense of the colonial meaning attributed to this name. Because also, from another angle, she didn’t really convert to Catholicism but rather she met the Jesuits and the Catholic Church half way – it’s like the symbolism of the Kaswentha or Two-Row Wampum can show us – it’s a meeting half way between two cultures. I really think her heart was as much with her own people as it was with learning something about another way of thinking or perceiving the world.

Kateri has been named a patron saint of  ecology and World Youth Day (WYD)

To read more about the Kaswentha/Two-Row Wampum, go to http://www.akwesasne.ca/tworowwampum.html

The Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha (Pt 1.)

Apologies to readers for the previous format of this page – I know, the layout wasn’t exactly the best so an improvement has been made. You will find a newspaper article on this story in this post and my analysis in the next post.

Kateri Tekakwitha, New Native American Saint, Stirs Mixed Emotions

Religion News Service  |  By Renee K. Gadoua Posted: 10/18/2012 7:46 am

Kateri Tekakwitha

 

(AP Photo/ Mike Groll)

EDT Updated: 10/18/2012

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (RNS) Sister Kateri Mitchell was born and raised on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation along the St. Lawrence River. She grew up hearing stories about Kateri Tekakwitha, the 17th-century Mohawk woman who will be declared a saint in the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday (Oct. 21).

She has long admired Tekakwitha for her steadfast faith and her ability to bridge Native American spirituality with Catholic traditions. In 1961, Mitchell joined the Sisters of St. Anne, and since 1998 she has served as executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference in Great Falls, Mont., a group that has spread Tekakwitha’s story and prayed for her canonization since 1939.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” she said of the canonization at the Vatican. “It’s a great validation.”

Doug George-Kanentiio, also a Mohawk from St. Regis, was brought up Catholic, even serving as an altar boy. But he left the church at 14 when he began to practice Native American longhouse traditions.

“I had a lot of anger at the church at the things they had done to the Native people and the world and the moral compromises they made,” he said.

Yet he, too, will travel to Rome for the canonization.

“It took me a while to begin to adopt a different approach to this, not one based on history, but compassion for a young woman who was determined she was going to emulate the suffering of Jesus Christ,” George-Kanentiio said. “That passion is remarkable.”

Then there’s Alicia Cook, who grew up on the Onondaga Nation, married a Mohawk and now lives at St. Regis, also known as Akwesasne. She has always practiced longhouse religion and has no interest in Tekakwitha’s story.

“The church has been telling us for years we’re heathens,” Cook said. “The white man has hurt us enough. They intruded on our land here.”

Those viewpoints reflect the diverse, seemingly contradictory reactions to the young Mohawk woman who converted to Catholicism more than 300 years ago.

Some see it as a story of commitment and strength and an affirmation of Native Americans’ place in the Catholic Church. Others view it as the result of the excesses and arrogance of colonialism, the suppression of Native American tradition and culture, and the remnants of a missionary tradition that forced its narrow understanding of faith on others.

Tekakwitha was born in 1656 to a Mohawk father and an Algonquin/Christian mother in a Mohawk village in what is now Auriesville, N.Y. When she was 4, her parents and a younger brother died in a smallpox epidemic. The illness left her scarred and nearly blind.

She was baptized by a Jesuit missionary in 1676. Some Mohawks tormented her for her conversion, but she committed herself to Christianity and a life of virginity, practicing extreme acts of religious devotion, including self-flagellation. She fled to a Mohawk/Catholic village in what is now Montreal, and died there in 1680 at age 24.

Calls for her recognition as a saint date to her death, and the official church campaign began in 1931. According to the Vatican, prayers to Tekakwitha for her intercession were responsible for the inexplicable cure of a 6-year-old Native American boy in 2006 in Washington state who developed a flesh-eating virus after an injury.

The church typically requires verification of two miracles for sainthood. But in 1980, Pope John Paul II waived the requirement for Tekakwitha’s first miracle, citing the difficulty of confirming details of incidents said to have occurred hundreds of years ago.

Tekakwitha is the first Native American named a Catholic saint.

She was born during a time of independent Indian nations interacting with the Dutch and French, said Allan Greer, a McGill University professor who studies early Canada and colonial North America and the author of “Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits.”

“It’s a time of tremendous turmoil, with epidemic diseases, warfare, new technologies being available through trade with Europeans,” Greer said. “It’s kind of a holocaust of the Native Americans by infections from the Old World, and millions die.”

In 1667, the Iroquois Confederacy — including the Mohawks — made peace with the French and Canada; as a condition, the Mohawks had to accept Jesuit missionaries in their villages.

Central New York’s history is closely tied to the Jesuits. Missionary Simon Le Moyne, namesake of the Catholic college, first visited the area on August 17, 1655 — the year before Tekakwitha was born. From 1656 to 1658, seven Jesuits lived at the Sainte Marie mission near Onondaga Lake, fleeing after learning the Iroquois planned to kill them.

The Jesuits never hid their goal of converting souls, Greer said. And while contemporary readers may see racism and arrogance in the accounts, the Jesuits were genuinely trying to understand Iroquois culture, he said.

Tekakwitha was not coerced or victimized by the Jesuits, he said.

“She is an active and aggressive cross-cultural explorer,” Greer said. “She is in a way trying to capture their secrets. She was on a mission to get access to what empowers Europeans in a spiritual sense.”

Mitchell reads the Jesuit accounts in their historic context, and credits the Jesuits with promoting Tekakwitha’s story: “The Jesuits were able to document and report it. We had no one to document it and tell the story.”

Cook, meanwhile, is teaching her children and grandchildren Native traditions and encouraging them to learn to speak Mohawk. But she has no hostility toward Native Americans who practice Catholicism or revere Tekakwitha.

“I wouldn’t expect others to have my beliefs,” she said. “We all have our own teachings. I have my own basket to carry.”

(Renee K. Gadoua writes for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y.) 

*Article courtesy of the Huffington Post.