SEATTLE – Dozens gathered in person and online Oct. 23 to hear the insights of Father Michael Carson from his work as assistant director of Native American Affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“This is heart stuff — not head stuff,” said Father Carson, who serves in the Diocese of San Jose, California, and is a descendant of the Choctaw tribe in Louisiana. “It’s connection. Feeling the pain, the abuse, the suffering. … Do not be afraid to let the pain and frustration into your heart.”

Father Carson was invited to Seattle by the archdiocese’s Native American Advisory Board in partnership with the archdiocese’s Multicultural Ministries team. He can speak about “the Catholic Church's history in relation to Natives without causing deep guilt to non-Natives or Catholics,” according to Kiara Raven, a member of the Native American Advisory Board.

In his presentation, Father Carson explained the history of Native boarding schools and detailed the U.S. bishops’ recommendations on how to promote healing with Native people — including listening sessions, relationship-building, archival research and cooperation with investigative bodies.

The presentation sparked questions and comments from audience members, many of them associated with Northwest tribes, who pointed out that not every experience was traumatic and not everyone is totally demoralized.

Raven called Father Carson’s presentation a “gift.”

She said she wept as she witnessed Archbishop Paul D. Etienne, Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, Father Patrick Twohy and women religious, all in attendance, “hear from ‘one of their own,’ a priest, Father Michael Carson, share courageously the truth of the Catholic Church’s historical role in the trauma of Native boarding schools.”

Father Michael Carson, assistant director of Native American Affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is pictured with Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, left, and Archbishop Paul D. Etienne. (Photo: Helen McClenahan)

The path to Native boarding schools

Father Carson laid out the conditions that led to the creation of Native boarding schools.

Beginning with the original Native treaties in the early 1800s and the government’s initial goal to pacify tribes through education, he discussed the cultural morality of the time. The focus was on erasing Native culture to prevent tribes from attacking and “because they had this idea that the Native culture was dying out — they thought they were helping them out by giving them European culture.”

Enter the Native boarding schools. Many of them were modeled on army camps, with harsh living conditions, forced manual labor and physical punishment. When Native parents refused to send their children, some federal Indian agents forcefully removed children, even kidnapping them, the priest said.

The Native families’ dependence on the government for food was used as leverage, Father Carson explained: “They said, ‘We won’t give you more until you give us your kids.”

The federal government controlled the boarding schools but relied on religious organizations to run them, he said. Due to anti-Catholic sentiment, most of the early schools went to Protestants and Quakers.

“When the Catholic Church comes in with the Indian agents, they were violating their own morality and ideology,” Father Carson said — by complying with the cultural thinking of the time and enforcing governmental policies that forbade Native language, Native culture and Native religion.

“Racism is a serpent that runs through this boarding school period,” he added.

Roots of historical trauma

The ongoing efforts to suppress Native culture led to poor self-image, laying the groundwork for historical trauma still suffered today.

“When you’re always told your family is bad and you’re bad, you grow up with some self-hate and that develops into psychological trauma,” Father Carson explained.

Many who graduated from the boarding schools returned to their tribes as strangers — unable to speak the language and unable to form connections with others. Their children inherited some of the same feelings of loss when they were bombarded with images of the “bad” Indian, and felt disconnected from their parents, who were never taught how to be a family in the boarding school environment, he said.

“Third generations don’t know how to be parents because they didn’t learn,” Father Carson said. “We need to help them build that self-image.”

How to begin healing

In the second half of his presentation, Father Carson explained how the U.S. bishops’ conference is working to enact recommendations that help promote listening and healing.

“This is the first time the USCCB has taken a stand on boarding schools (that) goes beyond the apology,” he said. “We want to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.”

Father Carson outlined the key recommendations from the bishops’ conference:

  • Tribal listening sessions that focus on working with tribes to develop the agenda and “listen to where the Spirit leads and validate feelings, which are neither good nor bad.”
  • Better relationships with tribes through shared community spaces, cultural events and other efforts “to build relationships and trust.”
  • Archival research that starts or continues the process of locating records related to Native American history in a diocese. (The Archdiocese of Seattle began this work last year in partnership with the Washington State Catholic Conference.)
  • Cooperation with investigative bodies, federal or tribal, since “the search for truth helps everybody.”

Although these steps will support the healing process, healing is not a one-time event, Father Carson emphasized.

“We are people of faith,” he said. “When we address healing, it comes from the core of being Christ-centered. All our actions are first and foremost as people of faith.”

Among those commenting after the presentation was Lenora Ballantyne, a parishioner at St. James Cathedral, who shared her story of gratitude for being rescued from a life of poverty when she was taken to a residential school.

“I’m so thankful because I can read, and I can write,” Ballantyne said. “I’m thankful they rescued me from death from tuberculosis.”

Ballantyne said she often wonders about the nuns at the school “and how lonely it must have been for them too. It must have been really difficult.”

Father Patrick Twohy, who is known in the archdiocese for serving tribes in the Pacific Northwest for more than 40 years, said he would also like to “feel compassion for the priests and sisters involved. They went all over the world trying to baptize and gave their lives to do it since the 1500s and 1600s,” he noted. “I think there is a broader picture that is maybe is hard to get to.”

Father Twohy added that many conversations focus on the idea that Native peoples are “all wiped out and broken, totally demoralized — but they are not!”

“They’re doing extraordinary work reclaiming their language and education, reclaiming the medicine and healing, reclaiming their jurisdictions. It’s just phenomenal what they have done,” he said. “Amidst the history and pain of what they’ve gone through, they’ve come through and they’re moving on.”

Raven said the Native American Advisory Board was encouraged that Father Carson's presentation was well-received by non-Native people and clergy who attended.

“Widespread education is the key to understanding, acknowledging, taking responsibility for and hopefully healing from the legacy of the Catholic Indian boarding schools,” she added.

To watch a recording of Fr. Carson’s presentation, visit this link and use the code: 1bhi=!WE.