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Tim Giago
Lakota Journal
August 18, 2002
There are two words that can best describe the Catholic Archdioceses in South
Dakota, New Mexico or in Boston: aloof, arrogant.
For that matter these two words about cover Rome and the rest of the Catholic
world.
Pope John Paul II made a feeble attempt at explaining the church position on
the pedophilia among its priests that has rocked the church in all 50 states.
He had the perfect audience to extend an apology for the church and an
opportunity to convey his own mea culpa when he spoke to nearly 500,000
children in Canada a couple of weeks ago.
In essence, he did neither.
The Catholic Church continues to lick its wounds and hide behind its own
arrogance and aloofness.
About 25 years ago, I wrote about my personal experience with church denial
and its penchant to counterattack when faced with certain revelations. The
small book "The Aboriginal Sin" drew outright denials and attacks upon my
integrity by church officials, particularly those at Red Cloud Indian School
(formerly Holy Rosary Indian Mission) on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
How long is the memory of the church officials at Red Cloud?
This year three of the four high schools on the Pine Ridge Reservations ran
full-page graduation ads with my newspaper, the Lakota Journal. They did it
to honor their students and faculty members for an audience that would be
most appreciative of their accomplishments, the Lakota people.
Red Cloud Indian School chose not to do this. Instead they ran their
graduation ad in a non-Indian newspaper far away from the reservation. When
questioned by my sales representative about why they would deny their
students local recognition and praise, a school official said, "Because your
paper writes bad things about us that are not true."
And so, 24 years after "The Aboriginal Sin," officials at the Catholic, Red
Cloud Indian School still hold a grudge.
My mother and father were married in the Church at Holy Rosary. My
grandmother was among its first graduating class. I was baptized, received my
first Holy Communion and Confirmation and eventually married there. I
attended elementary and high school there.
I also saw a lot of hypocrisy there. I saw children severely punished by
priests, prefects and nuns for speaking in their native tongue while one
priest, Father John Bryde, went around with a notebook questioning any elder
who came to the school about the Lakota language and eventually becoming a
Lakota speaker himself.
I listened to lectures giving us clear warning that if we did not embrace the
Catholic faith, we would never go to heaven. That the spirituality of our
ancestors was built upon heathenism. I was forced to go to church seven days
a week, as were the other students.
I attended services at Holy Rosary Mission one Sunday, soon after Shannon
County, the county that makes up a large part of the Pine Ridge Reservation,
was declared the "poorest county in the United States" by the U. S. Census
Bureau. I listened aghast to a priest ask in his sermon for donations for the
poor of Africa.
Africa?
"The Aboriginal Sin" described many of the terrible times, and the good
times, we experienced as students at Holy Rosary Indian Mission in the 1940s
and 1950s. My research revealed that the church has raised millions of
dollars, supposedly, to help the poor Sioux Indians of the Pine Ridge
Reservation.
Instead, many of those millions went to purchase rich farmland in the
bordering state of Nebraska and much of it went to the Archdiocese in Boston
and other eastern cities. These are facts that have been hidden by the
church.
The Indian missions attempted to strip away the identity of the Indian
children. The indoctrination was so intense it left many children totally
confused about themselves. Many died still searching for themselves. They
died heartbroken and confused, broken in spirit and body.
It has been my experience that the Catholic Church leaders will remain aloof,
arrogant and accusatory of anyone who questions their corruptness,
callousness and their conciliatory efforts to cover up their sins of the
past.
Twenty-four years ago, I wrote about the abuses suffered by Indian children
at the hands of the Catholic Church and was accused of Catholic bashing. What
does that say about those journalists writing about the horrendous acts of
pedophilia that now lie exposed? Are they also Catholic Church bashers?
Pope John Paul II and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church owe an
international apology to the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere for
the death and destruction wrought by their hand.
They also owe an accounting to the Indian people for the millions, nay
billions of dollars, they collected in their name while the Indians lived in
the worst poverty imaginable. The "begging for dollars" letters are still a
huge arsenal to raise millions more by the Catholic Church. They are going
out in the mail even as I write this column. And the beat goes on.
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is editor and publisher of the weekly Lakota
Journal. He can be reached at editor@lakotajournal.com or at P.O. Box 3080,
Rapid City, S.D. 57709.
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