American Indian Catholics – serie

Where the Two Roads Meet considers how Indian Catholics have tried to follow the route of two separate traditions, each with its own expectations, patterns, and identities. Vecsey examines the lives of American Indian Catholics who have been leaders in their communities and in the Church and considers how these extraordinary men and women have brought together their Indian and Catholic identities to accomplish a cultural and religious syncretism within themselves.This volume, the third in the American Indian Catholics series, scrutinizes two recent developments in Native American Catholic ministry—the Medicine Men and Clergy Meetings that took place in the 1970s at the Lakota Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, and the National Tekakwitha Conference, created to foster American Indian Catholic inculturation. Vecsey demonstrates how these developments have encouraged Church personnel to engage in interfaith dialogue with Indian religious exponents.

Until 1492, Christianity was totally unknown to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Although the Native Americans already had long-established religious cultures of their own, the arrival of the Christian Europeans made an extremely significant impact on their lives: over the following five centuries, millions of American Indians would come to identify themselves as Christians. The first form of Christianity that American Indians encountered was Roman Catholicism, and, in terms of numbers of self-identified American Indian Catholics, Catholicism has remained the dominant Christian religion among Indian peoples—for better or worse.On the Padres' Trail begins with the arrival of Europeans in the New World and the invasion of the Caribbean, from which author Christopher Vecsey traces the expansion of Catholicism into New Spain. He devotes special attention to the history of the Catholic faith and institutions among the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico, particularly in the years since the establishment of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Then he turns his attention to the history and effects, both good and bad, of the Catholic missions among the Indians of California. In the final section of the book, he details the history of the judgments made about Catholic missionizing in California (and, by extension, all of New Spain) and closes with the sometimes critical perspectives of contemporary Native American Catholics regarding the padres who first brought Catholicism to their ancestors.Professor Vecsey's American Indian Catholics series, the first full-length treatment of the subject, is a comprehensive study which encompasses five hundred years and much of North America. In over a decade of study, the author has conducted primary research at repositories held by Catholic dioceses, in the records of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (housed at Marquette University) and in Catholic Indian communities throughout the American Southwest. He has attended conferences of Catholic Indians, participated in Catholic Indian liturgies, and interviewed many Indian Catholics.On the Padres' Trail, the first volume in Professor Vecsey's three-volume American Indian Catholics series, is an invaluable addition to current scholarship on the history of the Catholic Church and to the field of Native American studies.

Kateri Tekakwitha, the renowned Mohawk convert of the late 17th century, symbolizes for thousands of American Indian Catholics today their own two-part cultural identity. Indeed, many feel a profound spiritual kinship with her as they travel the paths of Native American Catholicism.However, this book tells not just her story nor just that of her Mohawk people. The Paths of Kateri's Kin offers the first comprehensive study of the interweaving of Catholic and North American Indian ways from the French missionary days of the early 1600s through the complex tapestry of Indian Catholic spirituality alive today. These chapters take you down the many and various trails North American Indians have followed in expressing their Catholic identity and spirituality.This book examines the fascinating dynamic between Catholic and Indian traditions in many tribal settings across North America and across nearly five centuries, always emphasizing the spiritual lives and practices of contemporary Native American Catholics. The Paths of Kateri's Kin reveals an exciting range of religious adaptation—from those who enter mainstream parish life to those who syncretize native and Catholic forms of spirituality.While the first volume in this series, On the Padres' Trail, explores the heritage of Spanish Catholicism among the Indians of the Caribbean, Mexico, and the American Southwest, this second volume surveys the traditions begun in New France. From the eastern shores of Nova Scotia and Maine through the Great Lakes heartland, the entire Mississippi valley and finally the Pacific Northwest, French Catholics came and imposed their faith and institutions.For those pursuing religious studies, Native American studies, or American Catholic studies, this definitive work provides the most inclusive approach to date toward this significant, interdisciplinary area.