Posted on 09/06/2015 8:33:03 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
With the California Mission's founder about to be named a saint, the church plans to be more sensitive to the heartache natives suffered.
With the pope expected to canonize Father Junipero Serra, who founded Californias first nine missions, the Catholic Church has announced plans to address the Native American experience with more sensitivity and truthfulness.
A Los Angeles bishop will oversee a review of third- and fourth-grade Catholic school curriculum to ensure it better reflects a contemporary understanding of Native American history, it was announced. Along with the curriculum review, church officials will review displays, signage and training materials used to train docents and guides at the states missions.
Bishop Edward Clark, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a long-time liaison with the states Indian communities, will lead the 18- month review, which will include an examination of the cultural content at California missions under church authority.
The review will aim for culturally-sensitive and historically accurate enhancements to grade-school portrayals of Indian life, as well as to traditional teaching on the missions themselves, according to the California Catholic Conference. The mission era gave rise to modern California, but it also gave rise to controversy and to heartache when seen through the eyes of the First Californians, said Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto, president of the California Catholic Conference.
For many years, the Indian experience has been ignored or denied, replaced by an incomplete version of history focused more on European colonists than on the original Californians, he said.
The announcement comes on the eve of the canonization of Father Junipero Serra, the 18th century Franciscan priest who helped convert thousands of native Californians to Christianity.
Pope Francis is expected to canonize Father Serra on Sept. 23 during his visit to Washington, D.C.
Today, on the verge of Father Serras canonization, the time has come to confront that incomplete history and to work with Native American educators, respected historians, Catholic school officials and others to change that and to reflect the best scholarship we can about that era, said Ken Laverone, provincial vicar of the Franciscan Province of Santa Barbara, a partner in the educational effort.
Soto said the initiative will also advise on ways to make the missions relevant for tribal members.
By definition, reconciliation isnt just about the past, its also about the future, the bishop said. And the future of Californias missions wont be complete until tribal members feel welcomed and included in mission life today.
Interesting to note that we used to celebrate the Spanish/Mexican element of our South West heritage until it became un-PC to suggest that E Plurbus Unum actually meant something.
Also interesting that the Prince of the Church will be presenting his opening speech/lecture to the USA in Spanish...glad he's stooping to English when he meets Congeress.
Any comments, DR, on what norton posted @ #21?
Gratuitous Catholic bashing or something relevant?
Are you kidding? Hopeless? Sub-human? They survived very well for thousands of years before anybody showed up on a ship from anywhere. Built villages, fished, hunted, gathered food, traded, wrote songs, made art. My apologies on your behalf to the Cherokee who posted on this thread.
And with tiresome regularity made war on one another too. The current unity (to complain against the paleface culture) is possible in large part because they aren’t at each other’s throats anymore. No Edenic paradise was that.
“And with tiresome regularity made war on one another too”
could be said about humans in general, to this very day.
Except culture makes a tangible difference here. American Indian culture did not fare nearly as well as that which carried the line of faith tradition sometimes called Judeo-Christianity.
Let’s not conclude, that since no perfection is available, contrasts are not valid or possible.
Not sure. But, he certainly is psychotic!
Fully agree. It was constant warfare between Apaches and Comanches etc. etc. Just like the constant warfare between the Teutons and the Gauls. It’s the same all over.
That is why documentation of such horrors will end up pretty much on the internet.
Some tribes were less war-like than others, some more. Pretty much the same as all tribes throughout history. Champlain took one side in a long standing war between Canadian indians and the Iroquois. As a consequence, the Iroquois sides with a tribe hostile to the French, the English. At bottom, the history of the Indians is past of the history of the human race. The savage (uncivilized) are no more and no less cruel than the Civilized.
Hi, Nationale7,
Actually, I was describing the “Digger” tribes of Southern California, who, according to contemporary observers, had a culture that had not progressed from the “hunter-gatherer” stage. Their diet was primarily roots, berries, nuts, lizards and insects.
I feel confident that, if you do read about the “Diggers” from those sources, you will become pessimistic about how well contemporary Somali refugees will assimilate into Minnesota.
FYI, I am part Cherokee myself, so I know very well that different tribes had (and have) different cultures. We Cherokees even had a written language. At the same time, the Diggers didn’t even know how to plant seeds.
But I take pride in NOT learning my history from watching Disney movies. History is a lot more complicated than that.
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