Ministries No ordinary experience
By ARTHUR JONES
NCR Staff New Mexico and Arizona
In the Navajo Nation, for almost 20 minutes the rental car radio
scanner surfed the ether, first FM, then AM. Nothing. This was remote America.
If there was a speed limit on the 50-plus miles of undulating road
between Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Chinle, Ariz., and St. Mary of the Rosary
Mission in Piñon, no local vehicle -- three hurtled by -- seemed aware
of it. One sign did warn of stock on road, but this late afternoon
the cattle were dots on sloping land miles distant.
Signs of habitation? A trailer and a small house were separated
neighbors, 10 and 15 miles between them. No hogans, the traditional six or
eight-sided Navajo dwellings, were spotted.
A second sign, closer to Piñon, said rough road
ahead. Brief qualms of conscience -- the car rental company would never
know what hit its vehicle.
Then, on to the Hopi Nation. That night, worsening qualms. The
last 18 miles of unlit road to the highway for St. Josephs Parish, Keams
Canyon, were unpaved. A pause to inspect the damage after a pothole large
enough to swallow one wheel. While outside, a look around. The stars seemed
closer than the next town.
In places like Tohatchi, Chinle and Keams Canyon, Catholic
priests, brothers and women religious live and work among people who may be
poor but have a life-filling spirituality of their own. These are Native
Americans whose Catholic baptism may have taken place long ago and far away, in
Indian boarding schools. What religion the older Navajo and Hopi
are -- beyond their own spirituality -- is often the result of the denomination
of the boarding school they attended.
Ministry to the Navajo and Hopi is no ordinary experience --
unless one is born to solitude like this, adapted to simple living and a habit
of listening more than talking.
For three days, NCR visited some Catholic sisters and
priests for whom such a life is second nature.
Most people on the reservations here lack what many Americans
would die without -- electricity, telephones, running water, cars. The 55,000
square mile Gallup, N.M., diocese straddles two states (New Mexico and Arizona)
and two time zones (many tourists are invariably either an hour early or an
hour late for Mass.)
Like distances, numbers cease to be relevant. Priests such as
Franciscan Frs. John Mittelstadt and Blane Grein will drive 60 and 80 miles to
a Navajo mission to say Mass for six or seven people.
It is a vast region, this Four Corners, where poverty is all
encompassing, alcoholism rife and employment a precious commodity.
Time, too, runs on a different clock. At 8 a.m. one morning I
picked up a Navajo hitchhiker, a woodcarver, headed to Gallup, 70 miles away,
for a doctors appointment. The appointment was at 4 p.m. When I dropped
him at Window Rock where I turned off, he said hed make it fine.
Hed just keep walking. Someone would stop. If he was five or six hours
early hed find somewhere to sit, maybe someone, another Navajo, to talk
to, he said.
Each year, he said, he hitchhiked up to Colorado to a river where
hed collect the cottonwood tree roots he used for his carvings. And
hed hitchhike back with a huge bundle of wood. Some people stopped, some
didnt, he said.
The next day I gave a ride to two sheepherders whod brought
their flocks down from the mountain pastures for the winter. Theyd been
walking for five hours before I stopped. And they reckoned theyd walk for
another three after I let them off.
They live without electricity or running water or
wives, one said. Mine left and his threw him out, the
shepherd added, with a laugh.
What moves Catholic missioners toward Native American ministry?
Some are called, some are sent. Mittelstadt was sent to Tohatchi. When he
complained to his superior that theres nothing going on
there, his provincial replied, Thats the point.
Mittelstadt got the message: Make it happen. He has.
But, as everyone out here quickly finds, things still happen in
their own way, at their own pace.
Day One: Tohatchi, N.M.
The evening AA meeting in Mittelstadts trailer -- the
gathering is called The Power House -- wrapped up. Eight men held
together by the common bond of staying sober.
The group was a mix of Anglos and Native Americans, the mood
upbeat, the night black, no stars. One street lamp illuminated the dirt road,
the rutted parking areas around the church, youth center, and clutch of
trailers and buildings that is St. Marys Mission, Tohatchi, N.M., a
village about 35 minutes of fast driving from either Window Rock, Ariz., or
Gallup, N.M.
Mittelstadts 3,000 square mile parish is on the eastern
fringe of the 25,000 square-mile Navajo Nation reservation.
Traditionally, explained Mittelstadt that first night,
the Navajos didnt have villages and towns. Its rather
sparse, said the priest, who has served the area for 36 years and been
pastor here for 11.
The four-meetings-a-week AA outreach is a major Mittelstadt
mission; he has walked that walk himself. There is a halfway house under
construction in the shadow of the church. Theres Franciscan Sr. Pat
Bietschs new Tohatchi Boys and Girls Club in the youth center by the
church, a sweat lodge near the cemetery, and a new, modest, six-sided log
hogan-style chapel for weekday Masses. More hogans are going up to accommodate
volunteers.
Bietsch, of the Oldenburg, Ind., Franciscans, was not sent here,
but felt a call. Years ago, while still a high school teacher, she made a
retreat with sisters ministering to Crow and Cheyenne people. It was a
little mustard seed, she said. She also had a good friend working with
Native Americans in Montana. Eight years ago, ready for a change, Bietsch might
have gone to Montana, but there was no opening.
There was in Tohatchi. Shes been in pastoral ministry here
ever since.
The work involves being present, listening, helping, teaching.
It is about gaining the trust, the friendship of the people I work
with, she said, and furthering the inculturation, the process of adapting
the Catholic liturgy and Catholic ways by drawing in elements of Navajo
spirituality and practices along with cultural symbols.
Liturgical practices include the burning of cedar instead of
incense; blessings extended toward the four sacred mountains of north, south,
east and west. At Masses celebrated by Anglo priests, the frequently available
cassette player is handy on a nearby bench where one of the sisters or
parishioners can push the button for the creed and gospel and chants recorded
in Navajo. Sometimes Navajo speakers in the congregation lead prayers and
hymns.
There are visual surprises, especially murals, all around the
missions. Some are by local artist Linda Benton whose The Tohatchi -
Navajo Cross patterned with Navajo motif on the 13th century San Damiano
Cross, hangs in Pope John Paul IIs private apartment in the Vatican. Her
mural Storyteller Madonna is a distinctive local landmark.
The work is to be with the native people, Bietsch
said. I must be willing to be inculturated myself, open to their culture
so that together, and eventually, the dream would be they take their
Catholicism and make the gospel theirs.
Bishop is imaginative
Where inculturation is concerned, the bishop [Gallups
Bishop Donald E. Pelotte, himself part Native American] is imaginative,
said Mittelstadt, he basically wants the Navajos to take over, a
process the Franciscan priest enthusiastically endorses.
The Gallup diocese has three Navajo deacons, and Tohatchi has one
of them, Sherman Manuelito, whose wife, Alice, is parish office manager,
bookkeeper and a commissioned lay minister. Outside the office, her
involvements include the Legion of Mary. Alice was commissioned the day Sherman
was ordained deacon in 1995. The couple has two children.
By day a program analyst with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in
church Manuelito gives his homilies and leads prayers in Navajo. Of
inculturation, he says, its a mix, some [Navajo Catholics] like it,
some dont. Though familiar with them, he does not regard himself as
well versed enough in the traditional ways to add to the inculturation, beyond
his use of cedar incense.
There are active missions in Coyote Canyon and Naschitti
coordinated by Oldenburg Franciscan Sr. Millie Speed and Syracuse, N.Y.,
Franciscan Donna Marie Evans, respectively.
Early morning: octogenarian Franciscan Fr. Terence Rhoades is out
by the little garden around his trailer shaking the dried deadheads on their
stalks. Seeds from the cosmos flowers drop by the scores into his bucket. Ready
for the next seasons planting, explained Rhoades, who also doubles as the
friary barber, hand clippers at the ready. Hes out at the missions on
Sundays saying Mass.
Franciscan Br. Mike Haag is likely to be out there midweek --
hes the mission electrician and maintenance person -- but hes also
deeply involved in religious instruction to the missions special
education class.
At 7.30 a.m. the hogan chapel wood stove by the altar is unlit.
The morning is crisp, but not cold. Theres a sheepskin on the altar.
Mittelstadt blesses the four corners of the world. The first petitioning prayer
is a plea that a parishioner might find work so he can care for his family. A
job is a lifeline in a region where unemployment ranges from 46 to 70 percent,
and unemployments consequences rage across family life and structure
bringing the poverty, alcoholism, abuse and suicide.
There was poverty when Mittelstadt arrived in Navajoland
three-and-a-half decades ago, he said. They were even poorer then. Hard
to imagine, he said. Still a few buckboards then, too. Now there
are pick-ups. Not much else has changed.
People survive on sheepherding (the Navajo Redeemer on the wall
behind the altar in the main church is a sheepherder), some blanket and rug
weaving, some carving and jewelry making, some welfare money. The fortunate
have jobs in schools and hospitals.
Father Johns (Mittlestadts) philosophy,
said Speed, is that the people are far removed physically from the
church, so we take the church to the people.
Which is why Speed, who lives in Tohatchi, spends most of her time
in Coyote Canyon at St. Josephs Center, a Quonset hut leased from the
local chapter (Navajo local government), where theres a
Sunday Mass, Wednesday Bible study and prayer, and Saturday AA.
Speed also operates Clothes on Wheels, the thrift store run out
of the long-since permanently parked Old St. Mary Mission school
bus. The greatest challenge here, said Speed, is the poverty.
Theres little employment in the Gallup area. The Navajo are like pawns in
the hands of local business people who hire them only as third choice. No
benefits.
The major health problem is diabetes, she said.
Many families do not have drinking water or electricity. A cheap way to
get something to drink is to buy cheap sodas at the local markets, and those
are loaded with sugar.
The people no longer do the sheepherding with lots of
walking or outside work, so they dont wear off the sugar. It just
collects in their systems. Diabetes is the number one killer out here,
said Speed, 52 years a teacher and campus minister now in her fourth year in
Tohatchi.
The tribe does have a community health service, she said, and each
chapter has a health representative and a home visitor. But the health and
social problems exceed the resources.
Day Two: Chinle, Ariz.
The church of Our Lady of Fatima in Chinle is a 350-seat simple
octagon with four small windows. The late afternoon sun has turned the leaded
western window into a golden blaze almost severe enough, it seems, to melt the
lead strips.
Grein loves this simple, wooden, clean-lines church. He battled to
have the baptismal font situated, in keeping with Navajo ceremonial patterns,
in the center of the church below the sky hole. The fonts base is in
contact with the desert floor below.
Grein watched every move the contractors made as he saw the
parishioners designs take shape, down to the male and female yeis
engraved in the glass panels of the front door. Navajo yeis are
protectors, holy persons who walked a pollen path of peace and
harmony, said Grein.
Before coming here 21 years ago, the Franciscan was 10 years in
the rural Philippines, three years with the Zuni Pueblos, and spent time in a
New Orleans parish with two African-American missions attached. He and
Mittelstadt are classmates. Grein runs the Gallup diocese Native American Lay
Ministry program -- and a parish larger than Rhode Island.
Pastoral minister, Dominican Sr. Margaret Bohn handles the program
to bring adults into the church, visits the Navajo nursing home and the Indian
Health Service hospital, and provides religious education.
In Chinle, Adelaide Link, a Franciscan Sister of the Poor, runs
Talbot House, a counseling center for the Gallup diocese. The center emphasizes
education, self-esteem and parenting classes.
Said Grien, The parishioners move easily between their
Catholicism and their Navajo practices. Theyre a religious and prayerful
people. Theyre different from the Pueblos who have ceremonies and kivas
that involve the whole pueblo. With the Navajo its more the individual.
Most ceremonies deal with some form of healing or protection. The medicine
people will conduct various ceremonies -- if a Navajo is having a bad dream or
feels sickly or has been off the reservation for a while and needs
cleansing.
Has Navajo spirituality influenced his own? Its almost
a cliché, but its true, he said, that you often
receive more than you give. An Anglo minister, said Grein, brings with
him a lot of garbage the Navajo people dont deserve.
You have to let go of that whole way of thinking and acting, he
said.
You listen to the people themselves and their ways, and gain
a really tremendous respect for those ways. Theirs is not a Sunday morning 9 to
10 religion. Here its more a part of their whole daily life. A real
traditional Navajo will wake up and greet the morning sun and go out and pray,
and do that at noon, and at evening time.
They have their Creation spirituality, their Old Testament.
They love to sit and talk about their traditions and their ways. The Pueblo are
more secretive, they have secret ways, he said.
As for the Catholic churchs role in the Navajos lives
of the past century, We made mistakes. We did stupid things as church or
as individuals, said Grein. We suppressed the culture, showed a
lack of respect. Same with the Hopis.
Seeking reconciliation
On both the Navajo and Hopi reservations, the Catholic community
is seeking reconciliation and is engaged in dialogue with representatives of
the tribes.
There is a 100-member Navajo Ministry group working on the
reconciliation, about 40 percent Navajo, with the sisters, priests and the
Navajo deacons representing the church. The deacons, as Gallups Pellotte
explains it, see themselves as the bridge.
Does being Franciscan add a dimension to ministering to the
Navajo?
Franciscan spirituality and St. Francis ways fit in
beautifully. With St. Francis we talk about Brother this and Sister that,
he said. The Navajo, I think, are surprised by, admire or take comfort in
our lifestyle, the simplicity of it.
Will priests like he and Mittelstadt die with their boots on?
Most probably, he said, Im 63. The
province has a policy that if youre happy what youre doing and do
some updating and the people are not writing in to get rid of you, theyll
let you stay.
Racine, Wis., Dominican Bohn has been at Chinle five years, but
has been visiting the reservation since 1979. She regards her main ministry as
home visiting.
I see a very deep spirituality among the people in relation
to Mother Earth. They teach me. I have a listening ear and as people share with
me their joys and struggles I indirectly and yet directly do spiritual
direction. I help them walk in the faith and walk with them. If they express a
desire to join the Catholic faith, I explain ways in which they can do
so.
At the nursing home Bohn, who previously worked with
African-Americans in the Midwest and Washington, D.C., and with Hispanics in
different parts of the country, is accompanied by a Navajo speaker.
She does some of the Navajo way and some of the Catholic
way -- for she is very Catholic, Bohn said. How does Bohn think the
Navajo regard her? The person I go with sees me as a healer.
The Chinle parish averages 25 a year in the class for people
wanting to join the Catholic church. This year its 35, including 22
children. The hardest part, for Bohn, is how to reach those who, over the
decades, were baptized Catholics, usually at boarding school, but never
continued to learn more about the faith.
But we dont push, she said. I go to homes
by invitation. Im not knocking on doors. As we walk together, changes can
happen. Thats the attitude I take.
At the Piñon Mission, Grein and two volunteers hauled wood
and hammered nails to build St. Mary of the Rosary hogan chapel.
The plaintive evening church bell called the faithful to Mass.
Only a half-dozen people were present. Navajos Lucille Etsitty and Dollie
Whitewater had driven in. They live an hour out, out where modern amenities
dont reach.
This is not the mainstream, said School Sister of
Notre Dame Rose Beck, the pastoral minister. People who have a mainstream
lifestyle, that perspective, would not like to live out here.
Beck, who came to Piñon from 16 years in bush
Alaska, said, Ive been off the beaten path for so long,
Ive no desire to get back on. I love the Native Americans, their
spirituality, their closeness to nature, their simplicity. That all speaks to
me.
Of her work in Piñon, now in its fifth year, Beck said,
Basically evangelization is a two-way street, not one-way. Every culture,
every people has a spirituality, something beautiful to offer. My approach is
if you can be open to their way, respect it, maybe even take part in it, then
they can do the same for you. Thats how it was in the Eskimo culture. If
I could live their lifestyle, their way, let them teach me their subsistence
style, they could be open to mine.
Also in Piñon are Blessed Sacrament Sr. June Fisher, a
school nurse, and Franciscan Sister of the Atonement Leila Spaulding.
Spaulding, who had been in Arizona only a few months, described the difference
between doing pastoral ministry in Piñon and in New York state, where
she came from, as having to learn to take things as they come a little
more. Sometimes things are going to happen and they dont happen. A
meeting is announced and people dont turn up. She is coping with
the distances, the isolation. Im getting used to it. I like to come
home.
To the cozy Piñon trailer alongside the church.
In the hogan chapel, smoke curled up from the cedar leaves resting
on the charcoal in the Navajo dish. Grein spoke softly as the gathered few
walked together the Catholic way through the liturgy. Occasionally the tape
recorder whirred and clicked for the Navajo portions of the Mass. The simple
gathering finished as the brief twilight settled in and almost immediately
turned to night.
Day Three: Keams Canyon, Ariz.
When I first came three years ago, said Vincentian
Fr.Clayton Kilburn, pastor of the stone church of St. Josephs in the
limestone cut that is Keams Canyon, Ariz. -- and the Hopi Nation -- if I
had 10 at Sunday Mass I was happy. Now were up to 20 and 30.
In this region, the sandy soil settles. Every wall in every
parish building had cracks in it when Kilburn arrived in 1996. But Kilburn, a
trained engineer, could tackle those problems. The church had no money, so he
borrowed the manpower -- trusties from the local jail.
I consider that a ministry, he said, because
they like to get out. And I always cooked a good meal for them at noon.
The work program reduced the inmates time inside. He also began to meet
more Hopi that way. Which brings up Kilburns larger challenge.
There are about 8,000 Hopi on the reservation, and more off. The
people live in about a dozen isolated villages and make most of their decisions
at the village level. They strive for a life of simplicity and
peace, said Kilburn. There are a lot of things that are very
admirable about them.
However, for reasons dating to back 19th century incidents,
relations between the Hopi and the Catholic church have been strained. Kilburn
has been joined by a core group of Hopi who want to repair the breach.
Two years ago, after talking with the bishop, the soft-spoken
Kilburn, a man of calming demeanor, took the first step in a process of future
reconciliation with one Hopi layman. They called a meeting. Pelotte, Kilburn
and two Hopis sat and talked.
The bishop explained that what we were hoping for was to
meet and talk about the past, said Kilburn. Were trying to
explain that what were looking for is not just some document thats
says weve been reconciled, but something that goes from heart to
heart.
A second meeting was suggested. Kilburn went to the Hopi villages
and talked to people. Pelotte flew in. No one showed.
Pelotte and Kilburn agreed to try again; meanwhile Kilburn was
invited to talk to the Hopi Cultural Preservation Board, a meeting of 15
village elders. The Hopi wanted to know if this approach was just coming from
him or from Gallup. Kilburn was able to explain Pope John Paul IIs call
for reconciliation. I spoke for 20 or 25 minutes and opened it up to
questions, said the Vincentian.
I guess I was there an hour and a half. They asked serious
questions in order to be able to understand. They also asked about some
articles that have certain religious significance for them that might have been
taken and preserved somewhere by the church. Kilburn said he would
inquire.
Last October, a group of some 30 Hopi decided to host a return
meeting with Pelotte and Kilburn. Protests from a more traditional Hopi group
led to the meetings cancellation.
Negotiations are delicate and not to be hurried. Ive
been told they dont have a word for reconciliation in their
language, said Kilburn. The core Hopi group and Kilburn will persist.
Keams Canyon has probably never had a pastor quite like Kilburn.
He grew up the only Catholic boy in Wilson, Ark., 60 miles from the nearest
Catholic priest, and as a priest was expelled from Burundi.
Between boyhood and priesthood, engineer Kilburn in India set up a
foundry, and in America sent up satellites. In India, he designed and applied
for a patent on the countrys first flush toilet mechanism, The Clayton
Flushing System. (His employer had a heart attack; Kilburn has no idea what
happened to his patent application.)
More vitally, the young man experienced and lived among the
really poor. Back in the United States, working in aerospace but thinking
about India, Kilburn came to the conclusion that what the world needed
was not more engineers, machines or material things but more people
to be with the poor.
He entered the novitiate in 1972 and was ordained in 1978 at the
age of 35. His first assignment was Burundi in 1979. The Daughters of Charity
(the Vincentians sister community) were already there, and all from
different countries -- Poland, Spain, I think Yugoslavia. The common language
was French. After five-and-a-half years, with the Burundi government
looking for reasons to expel foreigners, Kilburn was given 24 hours to get
out.
Next he learned Spanish. He worked in Californias San
Joaquin Valley for 10 years, took a sabbatical in Guatemala before Keams
Canyon.
Again, for Kilburn, there are Daughters of Charity sharing the
work. English speakers. This time its Srs. Mary Kay Schreier and Sherry
Barrett.
In the mid-1990s the five Daughters of Charity provincials agreed
the sisters would collaborate with Vincentian priests moving into Northeastern
Arizona reservation missions previously operated by Franciscans and others.
Volunteers were sought.
Finding her way
For nine years, Schreier had been pastoral coordinator of a
priestless parish in Robbins, Ill., a 7,000-population African-American town
outside Chicago. She thought it was time for an African-American to take over
and took her decision to the provincial who asked her what she wanted to do
next. Schreier said she didnt mind, as long as it was with the poor.
She hadnt counted on anything so remote. Keams Canyon, hours
from a town with stores, movie houses and libraries came as some contrast with
urban life with everything 10 minutes away at most. Probably the most
difficult thing for me, said Schreier, who arrived in August 1998,
is finding my way around on the dirt roads. The Chicago area always has
street signs and maps. The Hopis have addresses in perhaps First
Mesa or Third Mesa, meaning they live in a village or a
dwelling somewhere in an area occupying hundreds of square miles, one devoid of
landmarks except to the experienced eye.
Theres a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in Keams
Canyon with students are from a half dozen tribes including Navajo and Hopi.
Schreier and Barrett, known as the church ladies, teach an elective
weekly values class at the school. Its sort of
scripture introduction, said Schreier. Were kind of planning
from month to month to see what seems to fit.
On a Wednesday evening, theres a religious education program
at the home of one of the parishioners. We might end up with 10 -- two
classes of younger and older. Probably three are Catholic. The others have some
connection, maybe grandparents or a mother who was baptized.
The work is just letting people know theres a Catholic
church here and its open. And were here to help however we
can.
One of the things she brings, she believes, is the ability to
encourage people who are very hesitant to gradually assume
leadership positions. Schreier goes to the jail every other week to hold a
prayer service for the women and show a video. Most of the inmates are Hopi.
A lady from the parish, Hazel Siow, has been coming with me, for which I
am thrilled, she said.
Barrett taught school for 27 years, mainly in South and Central
America. She became what she describes as a disaster sister.
Earthquake in Bolivia -- there goes Barrett. Last August she agreed to take the
opening in Keams Canyon.
She is carefully casting around, seeing where she can best help.
She sees herself as good with children, and when she visits people
with Schreier, shes also keeping an eye on peoples health needs, to
relay to the local health service.
Basically, she says, Im good at filling in. Whatever
needs doing. In Bolivia and Guatemala, with her language skills and
familiarity with the culture, she worked the makeshift tents. Its
like social work -- anybody sick? What do you need? But teaching all the
time. Especially the children.
That good at filling in could cover a lot of
territory. Barrett is also the maintenance lady -- handy with a
screwdriver and, with disaster work behind her, not a bad electrician
either.
On the road again
Back on the road to Keams Canyon, Ganado, St. Michaels and
Gallup.
Two hitchhikers, high school age, a boy and girl. Navajos,
educated, bright, inquisitive. And, coincidentally, Catholics. As we talked
they wanted something to tell their friends about the area that their friends
wouldnt know.
So I told them they were in the only diocese in the world
reputedly created on site by a future pope.
During a 1930s U.S. visit, Secretary of State Cardinal Eugenio
Pacelli (the future Pius XII), saw this huge area from a small plane when it
landed to refuel. He asked what the area was. When told it was made up of
Indian reservations, he remarked it should all be one diocese.
In March 1939, Pacelli was elected pope. In December 1939 the
Gallup diocese was created. Pacelli might have had second thoughts had he been
traveling by car.
National Catholic Reporter, January 21,
2000
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