Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions
Encyclopedia
The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions was a Roman Catholic institution created in 1874 by J. Roosevelt Bayley, Archbishop of Baltimore, for the protection and promotion of Catholic mission interests among Native Americans in the United States
.
as Catholic Commissioner of Indian Missions to represent the dioceses, which was an appointment Brouillet and the Northwest bishops had requested nine years earlier.
Prominent among the Catholic claims were the allotment of only seven Indian reservations under the Peace Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant
. Based on the past work by Catholic missionaries among those tribes, the Catholic dioceses had expected allotments to 38 of the 73 reservations. Beginning in 1869, Grant had crafted a policy of close church-state collaboration through the Board of Indian Commissioners
as a means to maintain peace with the tribes and to fight the corruption in government that was rampant within the Office of Indian Affairs. In force to 1881, the policy's implementation gave Catholic missionaries exclusive religious domain to the reservations allotted to the Catholic Church, but also denied Native American Catholics on other reservations their freedom of religion
to attend local Catholic churches and schools.
While addressing the Catholic mission concerns with the government, the new Office of Catholic commissioner also built its support within the Catholic Church. It solicited aid from the bishops and laity through various appeals and through allied fundraising organizations, such as the Catholic Indian Missionary Association. The weak initial responses prompted James McMaster, editor of the New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, to call for the Office’s closure, which in 1879, led to its reorganizing and renaming as the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. Meanwhile in June that year, the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda of the Holy See
approved of the Catholic Bureau, and in 1884, the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore confirmed it and added a board of directors composed of bishops. The council also created a Lenten collection for Native American and African American
missions under a Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians
with responsibilities to support the missions and the Catholic Bureau.
While the Peace Policy remained in force, the government collaborated with Christian
organizations to provide schools for Native Americans. As needed, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs approved annual contracts with religious organizations, which provided school personnel and buildings, while the government provided financial support for the tuition and boarding expenses. Under this system, the Catholic Bureau successfully expanded the number of Catholic schools for Native Americans from three with $7,000 in government contracts in 1873 to 38 with $395,000 in contracts 20 years later. This alarmed the Indian Rights Association
and its supporters, who saw the Catholic native schools as part of the overall growth of U.S. Catholic schools and a threat to the Culture of the United States
and the principal of the separation of church and state
. Consequently, they supported a national school system plan for Native American children put forth in 1889 by Thomas Jefferson Morgan, which he began to implement the following year when he took office as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Morgan’s plan did not allow for the creation of new contracts with religiously-affiliated schools and it called for the gradual phasing out of the existing ones. Committed to saving the contract-dependent Catholic schools, Catholic Bureau director Father Joseph Stephan achieved some success in bypassing the Office of Indian Affairs and securing direct appropriations from the United States Congress
. However, he encountered substantial opposition, which he believed was orchestrated by Morgan. Relations between them deteriorated, and in July 1891, Morgan severed all relations with the Catholic Bureau, which continued until Morgan left office two years later. Nonetheless, Morgan’s school plan remained and Congress phased out most contracts with religious schools from 1996 to 1900, which caused a number of the Catholic schools to close.
The Catholic Bureau led the effort to save as many of the now over 50 Catholic schools as possible. It promoted in-church appeals from bishops and missionaries; it launched a fundraising support organization called the Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children coupled with The Indian Sentinel magazine as a membership benefit; and it collaborated with other allied fundraising groups, such as the Marquette League
. These efforts and those of the Lenten collection proved helpful. However, the bulk of the support that materialized came from Katharine Drexel
, who saved many schools by donating over $100,000 per year and supplying school personnel through the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
.
In 1896, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Daniel M. Browning reasoned that, since the government regarded native people as its wards, the Indian Office, and not the parents of Native American children, should decide which schools the children should attend. However, Catholic Bureau director Father William Ketcham notified President William McKinley
that this practice violated the educational rights
of parents and McKinley ordered the ruling rescinded in 1901.
In 1900, and again in 1904, the Catholic Bureau applied to use trust assets from certain tribes to educate some of their children in Catholic schools. In 1900, the Indian Office rejected the applications when opponents criticized this apparent breach of the separation of church and state
. However in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt
decided that with Native American approval, trust assets could be used for private schools and the Indian Office issued contracts to the Catholic Bureau for eight schools. When Congress denied legal prohibitions, the Indian Rights Association and its supporters brought suit against Indian Affairs Commissioner Francis E. Leupp in a case known as Quick Bear v. Leupp. Following the federal appeals system, the Supreme Court ruled on it unanimously in 1908 and found that tribal trust assets were, in fact, private and not public funds that Native Americans could spend as they wished. Consequently, from trust assets, Native American parents paid Catholic schools over $100,000 in tuition over the next 50 years.
In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act
generated extensive debate. While critics branded it as communistic and a means to de-Christianize and re-“paganize” native people, the Catholic Bureau applauded it as offering solutions to ill-conceived policies, such as allotment, and saw it as neither communistic nor hostile to Catholic missions and schools. However, the Catholic Bureau feared that its close working relationship with Collier’s Indian Office might revive the specter of anti-Catholic agitation. In a report the following year, it disclosed that 35 Catholic schools on reservations had been receiving annual government contracts. Three years earlier these schools received $188,500 in contracts, and even with the Great Depression, government support decreased just slightly the following year, which was more than offset by emergency government relief secured by the Catholic Bureau.
Because Congress had curtained domestic spending during World War II, appropriations for reservation-based Catholic schools dropped to $153,000 by 1946. However, strong post-war economic growth and active lobbying in Congress by the Catholic Bureau increased the funding for these schools to $289,000 by 1952.
In 1962, the Catholic Bureau counted 129,000 Native American Catholics served by 394 Catholic mission chapels and 9,200 children served by 54 Catholic schools on or near Indian reservations. By the next decade, tuition funding from tribal trust accounts ceased as the accounts became depleted. This prompted several schools to close and caused critical situations for a number of the 47 reservation schools. In response, Catholic Bureau director Monsignor Paul Lenz founded an Association of Catholic Indian Schools, which in June 1983, coordinated plans to maintain the schools through direct mail campaigns, personal appeals and wills of request.
After Pope Paul VI restored the permanent deaconate in 1967, the ranks of deacons began to include Native Americans. However, some Native deaconate students had difficulties in adjusting to classroom settings and textbooks. So in 1986, the Catholic Bureau financed a redesigned textbook series titled, Builders of the New Earth: The Formation of Deacons and Lay Ministers by the staff of the Sioux Spiritual Center of the Rapid City
diocese. Since then, the series has been reprinted multiple times for the training of Native American deacons in the United States and Canada.
In 1977, a U.S. bishops’ statement urged the United States government to develop policies to provide greater justice for Native Americans. Later that year the Catholic Bureau followed by testifying in support of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act
, which Congress enacted in 1978. Also in 1977, the Catholic Bureau, in cooperation with the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians, began to support the Tekakwitha Conference
, which then reorganized from an association of Northern Plains Catholic missionaries into one representing Native American Catholics. Meanwhile, the Catholic Bureau began to promote the canonization cause of its namesake, Kateri Tekakwitha
, a 17th century Mohawk convert.
In 1980, the offices of the Catholic Bureau, which have been shared with the Commission since 1935, became known as the Black and Indian Mission office
. During the following year, the United States Catholic Conference Ad-Hoc Committee on National Collections attempted to incorporate the Commission’s Black and Indian Mission collection within a consolidated program of national collections administered by the Catholic Conference. This would have ended the independence of the Catholic Bureau as well as the Commission and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board
. Lenz objected and successfully opposed the consolidation as an attack on the interests of black and Native American Catholics. Thereafter he continued to build the collection, which surpassed seven million dollars in 1994.
The Catholic Bureau also succeeded in identifying two high achieving priests with Native American ancestry as prospects for the Catholic Church hierarchy
. In 1986, the Holy See
named Donald E. Pelotte as coadjutor Bishop of Gallup
, and in 1988, it named Charles J. Chaput
as Bishop of Rapid City
.
Catholic lay women organized the Association with chapters in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia
, St. Louis, and other major U.S. cities. Brouillet served as its director-treasurer and Ellen Ewing Sherman
served as its principal organizer and fundraiser. Through its Catholic Indian Mission Fund, it raised $48,700 in donations and bequests for the Catholic Bureau and reservation-based Catholic missions and schools. $6,000 was the most raised in a single year and it ceased when the Catholic Bureau succeeded in acquiring government contracts for the Catholic schools.
Ketcham launched the Society in conjunction with The Indian Sentinel magazine on Catholic missions and Native Americans. The U.S. bishops approved of the Society and in 1908, Pope Pius X added his commendation. Ketcham served as president and members paid $.25 per year and received the magazine in English (or German to 1918). The Society raised $21,000 and 26,000 in 1902 and 1903 respectively with exceptional support from Catholic parishes and schools in Cleveland
and Philadelphia, where parish chapters were created. Membership certificates were available in seven different languages including German and Lakota
.
serves as the archival repository for the Catholic Bureau and its affiliated institutions, the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians
and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board
. Collectively, these institutions comprise the Black and Indian Mission office
. However, the archival records of the institutions are known as the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records after the oldest of the three institutions, which has generated the bulk of the archival records. Marquette University provides selected images from the Catholic Bureau records and The Indian Sentinel as separate online digital collections.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
.
History
In 1872, the Catholic bishops of Oregon and Washington Territory sent Father Jean-Baptiste Brouillet to Washington as their representative to settle claims against the United States. However, the effort grew quickly to represent all U.S. Catholic dioceses with claims related to past mission work among Native Americans. Late in the following year, Archbishop Bayley appointed General Charles EwingCharles Ewing (General)
Charles Ewing, was an attorney and Union Army general during the American Civil War. He was the son of Interior Secretary Thomas Ewing, the brother of Thomas Ewing, Jr. and Hugh Boyle Ewing, and the foster brother & brother-in-law of William T. Sherman...
as Catholic Commissioner of Indian Missions to represent the dioceses, which was an appointment Brouillet and the Northwest bishops had requested nine years earlier.
Prominent among the Catholic claims were the allotment of only seven Indian reservations under the Peace Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
. Based on the past work by Catholic missionaries among those tribes, the Catholic dioceses had expected allotments to 38 of the 73 reservations. Beginning in 1869, Grant had crafted a policy of close church-state collaboration through the Board of Indian Commissioners
Board of Indian Commissioners
The Board of Indian Commissioners was a committee that advised the federal government of the United States on Native American policy and it inspected supplies delivered to Indian agencies to ensure the fufillment of government treaty obligations to tribes....
as a means to maintain peace with the tribes and to fight the corruption in government that was rampant within the Office of Indian Affairs. In force to 1881, the policy's implementation gave Catholic missionaries exclusive religious domain to the reservations allotted to the Catholic Church, but also denied Native American Catholics on other reservations their freedom of religion
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
to attend local Catholic churches and schools.
While addressing the Catholic mission concerns with the government, the new Office of Catholic commissioner also built its support within the Catholic Church. It solicited aid from the bishops and laity through various appeals and through allied fundraising organizations, such as the Catholic Indian Missionary Association. The weak initial responses prompted James McMaster, editor of the New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, to call for the Office’s closure, which in 1879, led to its reorganizing and renaming as the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. Meanwhile in June that year, the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda of the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
approved of the Catholic Bureau, and in 1884, the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore confirmed it and added a board of directors composed of bishops. The council also created a Lenten collection for Native American and African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
missions under a Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians
Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians
The Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians has been a U.S. Roman Catholic institution that administers a national annual appeal in support of Catholic mission work.-History:...
with responsibilities to support the missions and the Catholic Bureau.
While the Peace Policy remained in force, the government collaborated with Christian
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
organizations to provide schools for Native Americans. As needed, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs approved annual contracts with religious organizations, which provided school personnel and buildings, while the government provided financial support for the tuition and boarding expenses. Under this system, the Catholic Bureau successfully expanded the number of Catholic schools for Native Americans from three with $7,000 in government contracts in 1873 to 38 with $395,000 in contracts 20 years later. This alarmed the Indian Rights Association
Indian Rights Association
The Indian Rights Association was an American social activist group dedicated to the well being and acculturation of Native Americans...
and its supporters, who saw the Catholic native schools as part of the overall growth of U.S. Catholic schools and a threat to the Culture of the United States
Culture of the United States
The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
and the principal of the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
. Consequently, they supported a national school system plan for Native American children put forth in 1889 by Thomas Jefferson Morgan, which he began to implement the following year when he took office as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Morgan’s plan did not allow for the creation of new contracts with religiously-affiliated schools and it called for the gradual phasing out of the existing ones. Committed to saving the contract-dependent Catholic schools, Catholic Bureau director Father Joseph Stephan achieved some success in bypassing the Office of Indian Affairs and securing direct appropriations from the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
. However, he encountered substantial opposition, which he believed was orchestrated by Morgan. Relations between them deteriorated, and in July 1891, Morgan severed all relations with the Catholic Bureau, which continued until Morgan left office two years later. Nonetheless, Morgan’s school plan remained and Congress phased out most contracts with religious schools from 1996 to 1900, which caused a number of the Catholic schools to close.
The Catholic Bureau led the effort to save as many of the now over 50 Catholic schools as possible. It promoted in-church appeals from bishops and missionaries; it launched a fundraising support organization called the Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children coupled with The Indian Sentinel magazine as a membership benefit; and it collaborated with other allied fundraising groups, such as the Marquette League
Marquette League
From 1904 to 1991 the Marquette League served as a Roman Catholic fund-raising organization in the United States that supported Catholic missions and schools among Native Americans in the United States.-History:...
. These efforts and those of the Lenten collection proved helpful. However, the bulk of the support that materialized came from Katharine Drexel
Katharine Drexel
Saint Katharine Drexel, S.B.S., was an American Religious Sister, heiress, philanthropist and educator, later canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.-Life and religious work:...
, who saved many schools by donating over $100,000 per year and supplying school personnel through the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament was founded in 1891 by Saint Katharine Drexel. Originally called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, the religious order is commonly known today as the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.-History:The Third Plenary Council of...
.
In 1896, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Daniel M. Browning reasoned that, since the government regarded native people as its wards, the Indian Office, and not the parents of Native American children, should decide which schools the children should attend. However, Catholic Bureau director Father William Ketcham notified President William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
that this practice violated the educational rights
Freedom of education
Freedom of education is a constitutional concept that has been included in the European Convention on Human Rights, Protocol 1, Article 2 and several national constitutions, e.g. the , the Belgian constitution and the Dutch constitution...
of parents and McKinley ordered the ruling rescinded in 1901.
In 1900, and again in 1904, the Catholic Bureau applied to use trust assets from certain tribes to educate some of their children in Catholic schools. In 1900, the Indian Office rejected the applications when opponents criticized this apparent breach of the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
. However in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
decided that with Native American approval, trust assets could be used for private schools and the Indian Office issued contracts to the Catholic Bureau for eight schools. When Congress denied legal prohibitions, the Indian Rights Association and its supporters brought suit against Indian Affairs Commissioner Francis E. Leupp in a case known as Quick Bear v. Leupp. Following the federal appeals system, the Supreme Court ruled on it unanimously in 1908 and found that tribal trust assets were, in fact, private and not public funds that Native Americans could spend as they wished. Consequently, from trust assets, Native American parents paid Catholic schools over $100,000 in tuition over the next 50 years.
In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 the Indian New Deal, was U.S. federal legislation that secured certain rights to Native Americans, including Alaska Natives...
generated extensive debate. While critics branded it as communistic and a means to de-Christianize and re-“paganize” native people, the Catholic Bureau applauded it as offering solutions to ill-conceived policies, such as allotment, and saw it as neither communistic nor hostile to Catholic missions and schools. However, the Catholic Bureau feared that its close working relationship with Collier’s Indian Office might revive the specter of anti-Catholic agitation. In a report the following year, it disclosed that 35 Catholic schools on reservations had been receiving annual government contracts. Three years earlier these schools received $188,500 in contracts, and even with the Great Depression, government support decreased just slightly the following year, which was more than offset by emergency government relief secured by the Catholic Bureau.
Because Congress had curtained domestic spending during World War II, appropriations for reservation-based Catholic schools dropped to $153,000 by 1946. However, strong post-war economic growth and active lobbying in Congress by the Catholic Bureau increased the funding for these schools to $289,000 by 1952.
In 1962, the Catholic Bureau counted 129,000 Native American Catholics served by 394 Catholic mission chapels and 9,200 children served by 54 Catholic schools on or near Indian reservations. By the next decade, tuition funding from tribal trust accounts ceased as the accounts became depleted. This prompted several schools to close and caused critical situations for a number of the 47 reservation schools. In response, Catholic Bureau director Monsignor Paul Lenz founded an Association of Catholic Indian Schools, which in June 1983, coordinated plans to maintain the schools through direct mail campaigns, personal appeals and wills of request.
After Pope Paul VI restored the permanent deaconate in 1967, the ranks of deacons began to include Native Americans. However, some Native deaconate students had difficulties in adjusting to classroom settings and textbooks. So in 1986, the Catholic Bureau financed a redesigned textbook series titled, Builders of the New Earth: The Formation of Deacons and Lay Ministers by the staff of the Sioux Spiritual Center of the Rapid City
Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City is a Roman Catholic diocese in South Dakota. It was founded on August 6, 1902 as the Diocese of Lead, and was renamed on August 1, 1930.-Bishops:The past bishops of the diocese are:Bishops of Lead...
diocese. Since then, the series has been reprinted multiple times for the training of Native American deacons in the United States and Canada.
In 1977, a U.S. bishops’ statement urged the United States government to develop policies to provide greater justice for Native Americans. Later that year the Catholic Bureau followed by testifying in support of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act
American Indian Religious Freedom Act
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Public Law No. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469 , codified at , is a United States federal law and a joint resolution of Congress that was passed in 1978. It was enacted to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of American...
, which Congress enacted in 1978. Also in 1977, the Catholic Bureau, in cooperation with the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians, began to support the Tekakwitha Conference
Tekakwitha Conference
The Tekakwitha Conference is a Roman Catholic institution that supports Christian ministry among Native Americans, primarily through its annual meeting.-History:...
, which then reorganized from an association of Northern Plains Catholic missionaries into one representing Native American Catholics. Meanwhile, the Catholic Bureau began to promote the canonization cause of its namesake, Kateri Tekakwitha
Kateri Tekakwitha
Kateri Tekakwitha or Catherine Tekakwitha was a Mohawk-Algonquian woman from New York and an early convert to Catholicism, who has been beatified in the Roman Catholic Church.-Her life:...
, a 17th century Mohawk convert.
In 1980, the offices of the Catholic Bureau, which have been shared with the Commission since 1935, became known as the Black and Indian Mission office
Black and Indian Mission office
The Black and Indian Mission Office houses the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board, which are three Roman Catholic institutions for mission work in the United...
. During the following year, the United States Catholic Conference Ad-Hoc Committee on National Collections attempted to incorporate the Commission’s Black and Indian Mission collection within a consolidated program of national collections administered by the Catholic Conference. This would have ended the independence of the Catholic Bureau as well as the Commission and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board
Catholic Negro-American Mission Board
The Catholic Negro-American Mission Board has been a U.S. Roman Catholic institution that raises funds and supports mission work in among African Americans.-History:...
. Lenz objected and successfully opposed the consolidation as an attack on the interests of black and Native American Catholics. Thereafter he continued to build the collection, which surpassed seven million dollars in 1994.
The Catholic Bureau also succeeded in identifying two high achieving priests with Native American ancestry as prospects for the Catholic Church hierarchy
Catholic Church hierarchy
The term Hierarchy in the Catholic Church has a variety of related usages. Literally, "holy government", the term is employed in different instances. There is a Hierarchy of Truths, which refers to the levels of solemnity of the official teaching of the faith...
. In 1986, the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
named Donald E. Pelotte as coadjutor Bishop of Gallup
Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the southwestern region of the United States, encompassing counties in the states of Arizona and New Mexico and and parts of Rio Arriba, Sandoval, Bernalillo, and Valencia Counties west...
, and in 1988, it named Charles J. Chaput
Charles J. Chaput
Charles Joseph Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He is the ninth and current Archbishop of Philadelphia, serving since his installation on September 8, 2011. He previously served as Archbishop of Denver and Bishop of Rapid City .Chaput is a professed Capuchin and...
as Bishop of Rapid City
Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City is a Roman Catholic diocese in South Dakota. It was founded on August 6, 1902 as the Diocese of Lead, and was renamed on August 1, 1930.-Bishops:The past bishops of the diocese are:Bishops of Lead...
.
Fundraising organizations
The Catholic Church used several fundraising organizations to support its mission work worldwide, a number of which, at least in part, supported missions among Native Americans in the United States and collaborated with the Catholic Bureau. Some organizations were created exclusively for this purpose with the Catholic Bureau engaged in their creation.- Catholic Indian Missionary Association (1875–1887)
Catholic lay women organized the Association with chapters in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in southeastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. It covers the City and County of Philadelphia as well as Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties. The diocese was...
, St. Louis, and other major U.S. cities. Brouillet served as its director-treasurer and Ellen Ewing Sherman
Ellen Ewing Sherman
Ellen Ewing Sherman , was the wife of General William Tecumseh Sherman, a leading Union general in the American Civil War. She was also a prominent figure of the times in her own right....
served as its principal organizer and fundraiser. Through its Catholic Indian Mission Fund, it raised $48,700 in donations and bequests for the Catholic Bureau and reservation-based Catholic missions and schools. $6,000 was the most raised in a single year and it ceased when the Catholic Bureau succeeded in acquiring government contracts for the Catholic schools.
- Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the IndiansCommission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the IndiansThe Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians has been a U.S. Roman Catholic institution that administers a national annual appeal in support of Catholic mission work.-History:...
(1884-) - Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children (1902–1922)
Ketcham launched the Society in conjunction with The Indian Sentinel magazine on Catholic missions and Native Americans. The U.S. bishops approved of the Society and in 1908, Pope Pius X added his commendation. Ketcham served as president and members paid $.25 per year and received the magazine in English (or German to 1918). The Society raised $21,000 and 26,000 in 1902 and 1903 respectively with exceptional support from Catholic parishes and schools in Cleveland
Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland is a Roman Catholic diocese in Ohio. It was erected on April 23, 1847 by Pope Pius IX. The diocese lost territory in 1910 when the Diocese of Toledo was erected by Pope Pius X, and in 1943 when the Diocese of Youngstown was erected by Pope Pius XII...
and Philadelphia, where parish chapters were created. Membership certificates were available in seven different languages including German and Lakota
Lakota language
Lakota is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages , and is considered by most linguists one of the three major varieties of the Sioux...
.
- Marquette LeagueMarquette LeagueFrom 1904 to 1991 the Marquette League served as a Roman Catholic fund-raising organization in the United States that supported Catholic missions and schools among Native Americans in the United States.-History:...
for Catholic Indian Missions (1904–1991)
Catholic Commissioners
- General Charles Ewing (1874–1883)
- Captain John MullanJohn Mullan (road builder)-Biography:Mullan was born in Norfolk, Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1852. He became a member of Isaac Stevens's party to explore the newly-created Washington Territory. Mullan was placed in charge of selecting a wagon route between Fort Benton and Fort Walla Walla...
(1883–1884)
Directors
- Reverend John-Baptiste Brouillet (1879–1884)
- Reverend Joseph Stephan (1885–1901)
- Monsignor William Ketcham (1901–1921)
- Monsignor William M. Hughes (1921–1935)
- Reverend John Tennelly (1935–1976); member, Society of St. Sulpice
- Monsignor Paul Lenz (1976–2007)
- Reverend Wayne Paysse (2007-)
Publications
The Bureau regularly published promotional pamphlets and periodicals, which raised funds for Catholic missions and schools in the United States and chronicled their activities.- Annals of Catholic Indian Missions in America, (1877–1881)
- The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 1874 to 1895, (1895)
- The Indian Sentinel, (1902–1962)
- Newsletter, (1977–2009)
- Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, Established 1874... Over a Century of Service, (1993?)
- The Sentinel, (2009-)
Archival collections
Marquette University Special Collections and University ArchivesMarquette University Special Collections and University Archives
The mission of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives of Marquette University is to collect, arrange, describe, preserve, and service records of enduring historical value for research, instructional, and administrative use...
serves as the archival repository for the Catholic Bureau and its affiliated institutions, the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians
Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians
The Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians has been a U.S. Roman Catholic institution that administers a national annual appeal in support of Catholic mission work.-History:...
and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board
Catholic Negro-American Mission Board
The Catholic Negro-American Mission Board has been a U.S. Roman Catholic institution that raises funds and supports mission work in among African Americans.-History:...
. Collectively, these institutions comprise the Black and Indian Mission office
Black and Indian Mission office
The Black and Indian Mission Office houses the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board, which are three Roman Catholic institutions for mission work in the United...
. However, the archival records of the institutions are known as the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records after the oldest of the three institutions, which has generated the bulk of the archival records. Marquette University provides selected images from the Catholic Bureau records and The Indian Sentinel as separate online digital collections.
External links
- Black and Indian Mission Office, which includes the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions.
- Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Digital Image Collection at Marquette University.
- Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records at Marquette University.
- The Indian Sentinel at Marquette University.