Capital "C" what?
I am not a capital “C” Catholic but most of my high school friends are. I do not feel the need to go to church every Sunday, but they do. I am not the type of person that you are likely to find in a missionary. In fact, the very mention of the term “missionary” brings images of horror (thankfully) beyond my imagination to play in front of my mind’s eye.
When I think of the word “missionary” the first thing that comes to mind are the Jesuit missionaries in the ‘new world’, trying desperately to beat the Natives into accepting a faith that is not their own. It makes me wonder why Catholic figures like Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha actually gave in to these missionaries. This woman for instance, was of Catholic Algonquin and Mohawk descent – why couldn’t she have chosen to live out her life as a non-Catholic Algonquin, or a Mohawk? There is one simple answer: because people of my religion have forced upon others their own faith as superior. The line: the Native Americans need a patron saint is ridiculous in my mind. I am ashamed to be a member of a religion that would be so vile and ethnocentric as to force their ways on others so violently.
Perhaps, just perhaps, all the natives needed was to be left to celebrate their faith in their own way just as anyone should have the right to do.
Glad to hear you're not a capital "c" -- religion is different from faith. If you have faith, you don't need religion. The relationship everyone has with their god is personal. It shouldn't need a broker to faciliate the discourse. Of course, many people prefer to be sheep ... lambs ... whatever. Many people also get slaughtered.
ReplyDeleteWhat did Tiffany Aching say about sheep?
For some strange reason, my googling led me to this blog of yours. I am a Catholic priest (and part Native American) and I would just like to say, I encourage you to look more closely at the history that you cite here. There certainly have been greivous failures on the part of missionaries, but the particular circumstances you cite are not among them. It was the Native Americans in the Mohawk valley who were cruel to the missionaries (& Kateri for that matter after she embraced her faith) not vice versa. In Auriesville NY there is a shrine dedicated to missionaries who were tortured and killed (like Issac Jogues and John de Brebeuf). In Latin America the treatment of Native Americans was sometimes (but emphasis on sometimes) very bad, but the graver violations were conducted not by missionaries but by soldiers plundering for gold. (Have you ever seen the movie with Robert De Niro, "The Mission"? It takes place in this era and shows some of the complexities of the situation, both within the church and within civil society.) It was the Pope who put his foot down about some of it -- not a worldly power -- when he declared (what is for now a no-brainer for us) that the native peoples were fully human and therefore deserved full respect as such. But even acknowledging some of the abuses of the Spanish et al, I encourage you to do some research about the Aztecs: they enslaved many other native peoples and conducted human sacrifice on a grand scale, esp. on top of pyramids, where they would rip out their hearts while they were still alive. For instance, Montezuma, the Aztec emperor when the Spanish arrived, slaughtered tens of thousands of slaves over a three-day period to inaugurate a new temple. The reason the native peoples like Kateri embraced Christianity was not out of force but out of captivation of the beauty of the message. In Latin America, the situation was more complex, more of a mixed bag in terms of missionary witness, but in any case it was not missionaries but the the miracualous appearance of the Virgin Mary -- now called "Our Lady of Guadalupe" -- first to St Juan Diego and then on a cactus tilma in 1540 or so (you've seen the image, I'm sure, even if you hadn't heard the name before -- the cactus tilma is still around and now it is one of the most visited places of pilgrimage in the world) and afterwards, for the first time, native americans became Christian in mass numbers (something like 5-8 million in ten years). B/c all of this happened 500 years ago, some of the details are debated, but if you do a little research on the web, you should find confirmation of the above. Anyway, keep up the questioning and the searching -- the Lord says in the Gospel, all who seek, find, and, I'm sure, wants thoughtful believers. I hope this has been helpful. Fr N
ReplyDeleteThe above is very sad. Sad. They took your faith and indentity away and gave you a new one. Now you defend what was done to as a good convert should, and you don't know any better. Whatever they did, it was better than brainwashing.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, your comment at best is inane and at worst just plain fucking stupid.
ReplyDeleteUmmm, wow, what a comment. Yes, Father Anonym-ass, you have done research. Very good. I am proud of you. And you didn't even tell the person who wrote this post that she was wrong and damned to hell. That's better than other religious people I know, and what they're reactions would be when they read this. There is still hope for you.
ReplyDeleteWe have all read the stories about what Natives did. They scalped people alive. Natives were also raped by the French ... hence Metis.
But do you seriously not believe, or close your eyes to, the fact that there are people who beat others into accepting ways that are not their own? For God's sake, open your eyes!
America does it every day. And do you know what? America even censors it. Yes, some people say that the White House has been more open now thatn in the last 20 years, but it still censors a lot.
People still are beaten to death becuase of their religion, of what they call themselves, whether that be Mowhawk, Islamic, or Irish Catholic. Didn't you read the blog above the one you commented on? ...
BTW, I don't remember what Tiffany Aching said about sheep. Although I do remember the story of the Ewe being protective when the lamb was about to be attacked by the Duke's dog in that barn.
Tiffany Aching said sheep are dumb (amongst many other words of wisdom).
ReplyDelete