Smoke signals., May 01, 2005, Page 8, Image 6

8 MAY 1, 2005
Smoke Signals
St. Michael Church Is Honored for Its History
CHURCH continued
from front page
Archdiocese has filed for bank
ruptcy because of the child
abuse scandal, and of
course, in times past,
the church played a
very destructive role
in the lives of Na
tives. Still, the people
of St. Michael and
the Confederated
Tribes of the Grand
Ronde have found
great value in the
church, the community
it nurtured, and to
gether, they see a future for it
here in Grand Ronde.
In addition to the $10,000
matching fund a little more
than $2,600 have so far been
contributed by members of the
mission the Church received
in January a $25,000 gift from
the Spirit Mountain Community
Fund. Both target construction
T
M )
and remodeling
projects.
St. Michael is one of
three small missions
that together today
make up St. James
Church of
McMinnville
also including
St. Martin de
Porres mis
sion in Day
ton and the
Good
Shephard mis
sion in
Sheridan. One
hundred and forty
five years after Rever
end Adrien-Joseph Cro
quet (aka Crockett) ar
rived in Grand Ronde and estab
lished St. Michael Church to minis
ter to the Indian community, the mis
sion here was honored with a celebra
tion hosted by the Oregon Catholic
Historical Society (see sidebar below).
St. Michael has long been an in-
Traditional Site St. Michael Church, which began as a mission to the Indian
community in Grand Ronde, has seen three church buildings in its 1 43 years. Beautiful
stained glass windows honor the Church's saints and community members, including one
of the Patron Saint Blessed Kateri Tekakwetha, known as the lily of the Mohawks, the only
Native American to have been named a Catholic Saint (below).
ITvi 1
" ." "'v.. ' .
i " .A" T-s -
Community Effort Loyal Hamilton, front, and Kyle Headings of Cross
Cut Construction inWiUarnina work on the gym floor that has long been a com
munity magnet at St. Michael Church. Generations of Indians have skated on this
floor, and many of the early commuruty memories started here.
valuable source of community his
tory. Births, weddings, deaths,
they all are recorded here.
The church has run a school here
since 1864, a few years after the
mission began, accord
ing to Father Gregory
Moys, a parish priest in
Grants Pass who also is
a former President and
now a Trustee of the so
ciety. Time and the economy
scattered the community
far and wide. Although
Indians were once the
predominant parishio
ners, their attendance
fell before the school
closed, and fell again af
ter the closure.
"When the school went away,"
said Sandi DeMaster, lay pastoral
associate for St. Michael "that seri
ously affected the sense of commu
nity." Add to that changes in
Oregon's logging and fishing indus
tries, and the many Native Ameri
cans who moved away to find new
jobs, and you see some of the rea
sons the community had scattered
in recent years.
"But with the casino, families are
moving back home," said
DeMaster. "Unfortunately,
things are never quite as we left
them, and they found a changed
community. People come back
yearning tor wnat
was but it's changed.
Now, it is a parish
that is not largely Na
tive American any
more." Today, the church
may be host each Sun
day to no more than
half a dozen regulars
from the Indian com
munity. At the same time,
she added, "there is a
desire to not see the
church go away. They feel that
very deeply, both Native Ameri
cans and Caucasians."
Still, the memories speak of
community, a role that in part,
the Tribe has assumed today, and
while nobody is yet sure that the
Church can survive alongside the
growing Tribal community, the
efforts to make that happen are
on-going.
The current church, the third
St. Michael, went up in 1938. B
Catholic Historical Society Features St. Michael Church
By Ron Karten
This year's annual spring event for the Oregon Catholic Historical Society
was the biggest ever, according to the Reverend Greg Moys. On April 16 this
year, the group honored St. Michael Church here in Grand Ronde as one of the
oldest Catholic missions in the Northwest, hailing from before Oregon became a
state.
Some 60 people, including few Indians, attended the four-hour event midday
Saturday at the church. Stories came from church and Indian perspectives.
Trappist Father Martinus Cawley, a monk from the Trappist Abbey, Our
Lady of Guadalupe, in Lafayette, described church efforts to bridge the gap
between cultures. He told how Portland Archbishop Francis Blanchet, a priest
at the time, created the original "Catholic Ladder." It started as a pole in the
1840s or 50s with simple notches referring to God's intervention on historical
events. Pictures were put on parchment later, and most recently at this event,
the audience saw a pole on the dais that was created for the Siletz Centennial,
according to Moys. Father Martinus described it as a Christian totem pole which
did for Christian history what Native totem poles do for Indian history.
Grand Ronde Tribal Elder Kathryn Harrison told the story of one trip back to
the nation's capital during the Tribe's Restoration effort. Led by future Con
gresswoman Elisabeth Furse and with her daughter, Karen, then 16, she de
scribed how her daughter told the Congressional committee, "All my life, all I've
ever known is termination."
At pow-wows, she continued, kids from other Tribes would ask about her
Tribe, and when she'd tell them about termination, that she had no Tribe, no
reservation, that her Tribe had been terminated, she felt lost. The actual testi
mony is on display in the Hall Of Legends between the casino and the lodge.
Though the day aimed at the church's historical significance, the church's
shrinking enrollment served as an important backdrop.
Gratitude Tribal member Wink Soderberg and his wife, ' '
Kathy, thanked Grand Ronde Tribal Elder Kathryn Harrison 1 1 VVT J
following her talk about Tribal history and the St. Michael t J
Church. Photos by Ron Karten ' f"v
"What happened to spirituality?" asked Harrison. "We used to go up to Spirit
Mountain to find this spirituality. We need that today."