Does the Motu Proprio allow for other pre-Conciliar Rites?

The USCCB has an impromptu translation of the *entire* Motu Proprio, not just the legal part that is floating around right now. Available here:

http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/bclnewsletterjune07.pdf

There's also other attached documents (apparently put together by the USCCB) after the Motu with some obvious and weak attempts to play down the MP's impact. (see "Ten Questions on the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Missale Romanum"), and in particular question #5 which not-so-subtly attempts to portray the old Missal as the clearly inferior rite of the two. And then Question 6, which mentions that the Holy Father gave one reason for the popularity of the Mass as nostalgic longing but conveniently forgets to mention his OTHER point that young people were being increasingly attracted to it as well. So as usual, some American Bishops can't avoid putting their own spin on things.

However, in the dross I found this question (and answer) intriguing, because I didn't read anything about this in the document itself:

Question 17:How does the new Apostolic Letter differ from these previous provisions?

The Apostolic Letter of Pope Benedict XVI differs from the previous provisions in the following ways:

What books may be used?

(under Quattuor Abhinc Annos and Ecclesia Dei Adflicta) The 1962 Missale Romanum

(under Summorum Pontificum) The 1962 Missale Romanum and all other Roman liturgical rites in force in 1962

This, if true, is very promising.

UPDATE: People who know these things on other blogs say "rites" here means the other sacraments, not different rites of Mass. They are probably right...definitely be interesting to see what this means for the other liturgical uses though! I find it hard to believe that the Pope has it in mind to exclude them.

Summorum Pontificum - Letter to the Bishops

My dear Brother Bishops,

With great trust and hope, I am consigning to you as Pastors the text of a new Apostolic Letter "Motu Proprio data" on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. The document is the fruit of much reflection, numerous consultations and prayer.

News reports and judgments made without sufficient information have created no little confusion. There have been very divergent reactions ranging from joyful acceptance to harsh opposition, about a plan whose contents were in reality unknown.

This document was most directly opposed on account of two fears, which I would like to address somewhat more closely in this letter.

In the first place, there is the fear that the document detracts from the authority of the Second Vatican Council, one of whose essential decisions – the liturgical reform – is being called into question. This fear is unfounded. In this regard, it must first be said that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy. The last version of the Missale Romanum prior to the Council, which was published with the authority of Pope John XXIII in 1962 and used during the Council, will now be able to be used as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgical celebration. It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were "two Rites". Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite.

As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted. At the time of the introduction of the new Missal, it did not seem necessary to issue specific norms for the possible use of the earlier Missal. Probably it was thought that it would be a matter of a few individual cases which would be resolved, case by case, on the local level. Afterwards, however, it soon became apparent that a good number of people remained strongly attached to this usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood. This was especially the case in countries where the liturgical movement had provided many people with a notable liturgical formation and a deep, personal familiarity with the earlier Form of the liturgical celebration. We all know that, in the movement led by Archbishop Lefebvre, fidelity to the old Missal became an external mark of identity; the reasons for the break which arose over this, however, were at a deeper level. Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them. This occurred above all because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear. I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.

Pope John Paul II thus felt obliged to provide, in his Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei (2 July 1988), guidelines for the use of the 1962 Missal; that document, however, did not contain detailed prescriptions but appealed in a general way to the generous response of Bishops towards the "legitimate aspirations" of those members of the faithful who requested this usage of the Roman Rite. At the time, the Pope primarily wanted to assist the Society of Saint Pius X to recover full unity with the Successor of Peter, and sought to heal a wound experienced ever more painfully. Unfortunately this reconciliation has not yet come about. Nonetheless, a number of communities have gratefully made use of the possibilities provided by the Motu Proprio. On the other hand, difficulties remain concerning the use of the 1962 Missal outside of these groups, because of the lack of precise juridical norms, particularly because Bishops, in such cases, frequently feared that the authority of the Council would be called into question. Immediately after the Second Vatican Council it was presumed that requests for the use of the 1962 Missal would be limited to the older generation which had grown up with it, but in the meantime it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them. Thus the need has arisen for a clearer juridical regulation which had not been foreseen at the time of the 1988 Motu Proprio. The present Norms are also meant to free Bishops from constantly having to evaluate anew how they are to respond to various situations.

In the second place, the fear was expressed in discussions about the awaited Motu Proprio, that the possibility of a wider use of the 1962 Missal would lead to disarray or even divisions within parish communities. This fear also strikes me as quite unfounded. The use of the old Missal presupposes a certain degree of liturgical formation and some knowledge of the Latin language; neither of these is found very often. Already from these concrete presuppositions, it is clearly seen that the new Missal will certainly remain the ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, not only on account of the juridical norms, but also because of the actual situation of the communities of the faithful.

It is true that there have been exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition. Your charity and pastoral prudence will be an incentive and guide for improving these. For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the usus antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard. The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.

I now come to the positive reason which motivated my decision to issue this Motu Proprio updating that of 1988. It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church. Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to unable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew. I think of a sentence in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul writes: "Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return … widen your hearts also!" (2 Cor 6:11-13). Paul was certainly speaking in another context, but his exhortation can and must touch us too, precisely on this subject. Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.

In conclusion, dear Brothers, I very much wish to stress that these new norms do not in any way lessen your own authority and responsibility, either for the liturgy or for the pastoral care of your faithful. Each Bishop, in fact, is the moderator of the liturgy in his own Diocese (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22: "Sacrae Liturgiae moderatio ab Ecclesiae auctoritate unice pendet quae quidem est apud Apostolicam Sedem et, ad normam iuris, apud Episcopum").

Nothing is taken away, then, from the authority of the Bishop, whose role remains that of being watchful that all is done in peace and serenity. Should some problem arise which the parish priest cannot resolve, the local Ordinary will always be able to intervene, in full harmony, however, with all that has been laid down by the new norms of the Motu Proprio.

Furthermore, I invite you, dear Brothers, to send to the Holy See an account of your experiences, three years after this Motu Proprio has taken effect. If truly serious difficulties come to light, ways to remedy them can be sought.

Dear Brothers, with gratitude and trust, I entrust to your hearts as Pastors these pages and the norms of the Motu Proprio. Let us always be mindful of the words of the Apostle Paul addressed to the presbyters of Ephesus: "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son" (Acts 20:28).

I entrust these norms to the powerful intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, and I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing to you, dear Brothers, to the parish priests of your dioceses, and to all the priests, your co-workers, as well as to all your faithful.

Given at Saint Peter’s, 7 July 2007
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

It has arrived....

When I got home yesterday, the Kaiatonsera Teieriwakwatha was waiting for me.

It's going to be hard to give a first impression as there's very little text in the book that *isn't* Mohawk. Only a few snatches of Latin--no French headers, as in the Book of Seven Nations.

But a few observations:

1) The book has *lots* of chant. Except for 126 pages of hymn text in the middle (no music), the rest is words with chant notation. It tells you which tone things are sung in.

2) Many of the Sunday propers here are in chant rather than just text. Moreover, they seem more close to the Roman propers. There definitely seems to be s greater variety of introits over the course of a year, and there also Alleluias which I don't remember in the older book. It also looks like there was a considerable expansion of the propers between the 1865 Book of Seven Nations and this work in 1890.

3) The old Jesuit letter "8" has been replaced here with plain old "w". Not very important, but just interesting typographically.

More as I delve deeper into this and learn ecclesiastical Mohawk better....

Kaiatonsera Teieriwakwatha

I was leafing through Pilling's Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages the other day when I saw a note about a 500+ page manuscript by Marcoux and Burtin that contained the chants for Mass and Vespers.

Manuscript, pp.1-530, 4° in the archives of the Roman Catholic Church at the Indian village of Caughnawaga, Canada, consisting of the Mass and vespers in the Mohawk language. The vespers were translated and the whole set to music by Père Burtin, missionary at Caughnawaga (p. 113)

This MS was written in 1878 after the Book of Seven Nations (1865), and given the note about Burtin's writing the Vespers, it's a fair bet that it contains a more complete vesperal and cycle of Mass Propers than the Book of Seven Nations. I get the impression that Burtin may well have translated some of the actual psalms for Vespers rather than just the collection of prayers and hymns that had been taking their place at the mission.

This MS would probably be *extremely* helpful for my research, but I couldn't reasonably expect to get a look at it anytime soon.

Well, last night I saw in Clement McNaspy's article "Iroquois Challenge" (Orate Fratres, 1930-something) that the Kaiatonsera Teieriwakwatha was *published* in 1890--too late to be included in Pilling. Well, that's all I needed to hear...did a quick web search for it and found some references to the original edition, a microfilmed version, and a 2001 reprint (REPRINT??!? Who's REPRINTING Iroquois liturgical works????) that was for sale at a used bookstore AND very affordable!

By this morning, the order was in. I'll report back when it arrives and I get to take a look at it. I am hoping it sheds some light on the problem of the cycle of propers which I described in the previous post.

Parsing the Cycle of Mohawk Propers

For the last few weeks I've been delving into the "Book of Seven Nations" trying to figure out how the Mohawk propers fit together over the liturgical year. These aren't exactly true propers--they are Mohawk texts that were sung by the choir at the places where the schola would normally be chanting the Latin propers (i.e. the Introit, Gradual/Tract/Sequence, Offertory, Communion). Some of these are just translations of key Latin propers (e.g., Terribilis Est), but others are chants from the Divine Office, and still others are various motets and hymns in Mohawk or Algonquin.

I think I've got things mostly figured out before the Gospel: namely, the Introit and the hymns that replace the Gradual & Tract. But the post-Gospel cycle is proving more difficult. There are sometimes indications like "Offertory", "At the elevation"", "During the Last Gospel", but only occasionally. Currently I'm trying to figure out what goes where when 4-5 hymns are listed after the Gospel.

Puzzling. Fun, but puzzling!

The Life of Kateri Tekakwitha website

Diego Paoletti has an *excellent* website with the two main primary sources on the life of Kateri Tekakwitha: Chauchetiere's account from 1695, and Cholenec's from 1696. He also has lots of other primary source material there, including accounts of the little-known other holy souls of the Indian missions. See especially his English Page 2.

http://www.thelifeofkateritekakwitha.net/

Mohawk Choir of St. Regis on NCPR

The quote from Carol Ross that inaugurated this blog was taken from a brief 4 1/2 minute news piece that North Country Public Radio did in 2000 entitled "Meet the Masters: Mohawk Choir of St. Regis". The news piece is still available online on the NCPR wepage (follow the link above).

You can also hear some authentic Mohawk chant in the background done by the St. Regis choir. The news piece starts out with the Mohawk Sanctus or "Holy, Holy, Holy": "Saiatatokenti, Saiatatokenti. Saiatatokenti. Niio Se8ennio Sabaoth..." It appears to be a similar setting (or perhaps the same setting) as the one for the Mass of the dead in Cuoq's Book of the Seven Nations (p. 17). There is also a second hymn or chant that I haven't yet identified.

My quest to learn (Ecclesiastical) Mohawk

Over the past few months, I've been trying to teach myself Mohawk. Now I've dabbled a bit in Delaware, but I haven't really ever delved into the meat of learning a Native language because...well, to be frank, I didn't see much of a point in it for me personally. We *do* have professional linguists who study these kinds of things after all, and I didn't see me being able to contribute anything new in that regard.

Well over the last few months I've been coming around on that score with the increasing realization that linguists don't generally tend to be well informed on things like liturgical history or Catholic devotional praxis. And one can't reasonably hope to study the native liturgies unless one is prepared to also learn the native languages used in them.

So a few months ago I picked up David Kanatawakhan Maracle's "Let's Speak Mohawk" audio cassette course and have managed to pick up a bit of pronunciation and some basics of the language. Then last weekend, my brother and sister and law graciously rented us a cabin in French Creek State park in Pennsylvania, and I took along a bit of light reading--Cuoq's Tsiatak Nihonon8entsiake (see sidebar) and his Etudes Philologiques, which contains very useful classical-style grammars of Mohawk and Algonquin.

Tsiatak Nihonon8entsiake (The Book of the Seven Nations)

Tsiatak nihonon8entsiake onk8e on8e Akoiatonsera: Ionterennaientak8a, teieri8ak8atha, iontaterihonnien nitha, iontateretsiaronk8a, iakentasetatha, iekaratonk8atokentisonha oni : kahiaton oni tokara nikarennake erontaksneha : kaneshatake tiakoson

Le livre des sept nations, ou Paroissien iroquois : auquel on a ajouté, pour l'usage de la mission du lac des Deux-Montagnes, quelques cantiques en langue algonquine.
[trans: The book of the Seven Nations, or Iroquois Prayer Book: to which is added, for the use of the Lake of Two Mountains mission, some hymns in the Algonquin language.]

Rev. Jean André Cuoq. Pub. Montreal, 1865.


The "Paroissien" is a French liturgical and devotional book described by Cabrol in his The Mass of the Western Rites as follows:

Prayer Books ("Paroissiens").(2)--The history and bibliography of these books is yet to be written...In them the Mass naturally has its place, whether the Latin text is given, with a translation, or whether we find merely explanations and commentaries, as was the usual practice at a certain period, when translation into the vulgar tongue was looked on with very little favor if not actually condemned.Today the liturgical movement has driven the faithful more and more towards requiring the complete text of the Latin Mass, with its translation. Thus certain prayerbooks are indeed real Missals for their use.

(2) The word cannot be translated literally. A "Paroissien" is a kind of abridged Missal which includes the office of Benediction, several Litanies, morning and night prayers, etc. Vespers of Sunday (and sometimes Compline) are also included. (Note by translator.)

From http://www.ewtn.com/library/LITURGY/MASS.TXT

Cuoq's Tsiatak Nihonon8entsiake was intended primarily for use at Oka (Mohawk Kaneshatake, English Lake of the Two Mountains),although it contains additional material from the Kahnawake mission as well. At Oka there were a significant number of both Iroquois and Algonquins, so both of these languages are represented in it, although the Algonquin material is mainly limited to hymns and the Ordinaries of the Mass.

This book is a greatly expanded edition of Cuoq's previous Ienenrinekenstha Kanesatakeha (1864).

Contents:

• intro matter.: Table of dates and Movable Feasts, table of Fixed Feasts
• p. 3ff.: Mohawk-language Gregorian chant, including settings for the ordinaries of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei), other liturgical settings (Asperges, Vidi Aquam, Te Deum, Requiem, Dies Irae, Veni Creator and many others) along with texts for hymns and litanies (some in Latin).
• p. 109ff.: Book of songs for the Mass and Vespers—includes many of the Sunday readings for the entire liturgical year along with hymns.
• pp. 295ff. Formulary of prayers by M. Marcoux, missionary of Sault St. Louis]. The Stations of the Cross, Rosary, and novena to St. Francis Xavier in Mohawk
• pp. 411 ff. Supplement to canticles and prayers: hymns, prayers during Mass, the Algonquin Mass and chant for the dismissal (Ite, Missa Est).

Note on the Algonquin Mass

The Algonquin Mass is listed on pages 436-437, and features the text only (no chant) of the Terribilis, the Gloria, the Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, as well as the Laudate Dominum (Psalm 117). A native-language Kyrie is notably absent; probably it was sung in the original Greek, which seems to have been a general characteristic of the Masses of the Algonquian linguistic family (cf. Durocher's Montagnais Missal, Belcourt's Ojibwa Anamihe-masinahigan). In Iroquoian Masses, the Kyrie was translated into the vernacular.

Canadian Plainchant

The Canadian Encyclopedia has a very informative online article on plainchant in Canada which serves a good introduction to some of the typical forms chant took in New France and some of the main printed and manuscript sources. Here is the most relevant section:

17th And 18th Centuries - The North American Natives

Seventeenth-century witnesses, including the Jesuit Relations, tell of the interest natives showed in sacred chants and plainsong near towns and missions (Abenakis in Sillery), sometimes even in brotherhoods (Ste-Famille). These apostolic and musical activities maintained links with France, in particular with the Chapter of the Chartres Cathedral.

Some missionaries brought manuscripts to the new world; among them is a 590-page manuscript, deposited at the archdiocese of Quebec City, featuring the Abenaki language, Latin, and French (Noëls, hymns), plainsong, secular music (Noëls, hymns) or polyphony (fauxbourdons, motets). It comprises the best known hymns (Veni Creator, Pange Lingua, Te Deum, Salve Regina, etc.), litanies, lections from Tenebrae, psalm tones, and various High Solemn Masses: Messe de la Vierge, Messe des morts, a two-part Messe royale, etc. Yvon Thériaut (L'Apostolat missionnaire en Mauricie, 1951), located a similar manuscript at the Indian reservation of Odanak (St-François-du-Lac, near Sorel).

Several song handbooks, among them a Graduale romanum (Paris 1697) approved by Du Mont and Nivers, once the property of the Séminaire de Québec, show Abenaki words added with a pen (sections of masses for the feast days of the Assumption and the Purification).

On Pilgrimage to Kahnawake, and its significance

The idea for this site has nagged me incessantly for probably about a year now, but the final impetus to actually do it came just after visiting the very spiritual heart of American Indian Christianity.

The mission church of St. Francis Xavier stands on the outskirts of Montreal, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River within the Mohawk reservation of Kahnawaké. The origins of the reservation itself date back to 1668, when Catherine Gandeaktena, her husband Francis Xavier Tonsahoten, and other Christian Iroquois settled at La Prairie near the French in order to be closer to the faith and farther from the scandalous behavior of their countrymen in the Iroquois homeland. Within less than a decade, this mission—having moved to Sault St. Louis—became a magnet for Catholic Iroquois and developed a reputation for holiness and piety. Among the Iroquois, the phrase "I am going to the Sault" became a synonym for adopting a reformed Christian life.

Since then, the mission of St. Francis Xavier has served as the focal point of Catholic life in Kahnawaké. But far from having a merely local significance, its importance is increasingly beginning to be felt across the North American continent. No small part of that is due to the contents of a marble sarcophagus off to the right in the Church. It is a simple but dignified tomb that houses the mortal remains of a woman who—please God—will soon be raised to the dignity of the altars and whose cult of universal veneration will be approved by the Catholic Church: Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. In the mid-1670s, this young woman had departed the Mohawk village and come to live among the pious residents of the Sault. She lived a short but stellarly holy life, and her reputation over the years has grown ever greater as she has come to be accepted by many Indians today—even non-Catholic ones—as their powerful intercessor and patron saint.

Already by the presence of her holy relics, we can tell there is something extraordinarily special about this church.

But even as important as they are—and certainly the reason we were on pilgrimage to that spot—it was not the remains of Kateri alone that made me sink to my knees and kiss the church floor in gratitude to God for this wonderful place. Nor that made me almost tremble with excitement as I browsed the shrine museum behind the sacristy and beheld objects of great personal import: the original Chauchetière portrait of Blessed Kateri, the chalices, the stoles, the recordings of Mohawk Christian hymns, the Missals and Mohawk dictionaries, and (rapture!) a manuscript liturgical book opened to a page of Gregorian notation for Sanctus of the Holy Mass—in the Mohawk language.

Having barely begun my almost obsessive studies of the Catholic Indian Missions, a glorious and inexplicably ignored period of American history, and after having scratched and clawed through many search engines for any little bit of information I could uncover, here I was at last surrounded by the Native American Church in all its supreme glory. Here I was immersed in almost 400 years of living tradition, passed in an unbroken line from the Jesuit Fathers and Iroquois martyrs and confessors to this very day.

Here at Kahnawaké, the Catholic Church is not a museum piece to be studied, it is a tradition to be lived. That tradition was born in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost, passed down through 1600 centuries through the holy Church of Rome, and then brought to this new land to be lovingly cherished and piously added to by the sons and daughters of the American continent.

To be sure, the Catholic faith in Kahnawaké has suffered over the last few decades—suffered through lack of interest, through a pagan resurgence, through scandals and injustices perpetrated by we all too sinful fellow members of the Body of Christ. In this respect it is no different from the faith in the rest of North America. Nothing like the clergy scandals of this country have touched Kahnawake to my knowledge, but in the course of the 20th century that community and so many others of Native extraction—many of which never needed to justify their Catholicism to anyone—were pressured into abandoning their cultures and even their native Catholic traditions.

But now it is time for Kahnawaké to come into its true significance—not just as a parish church, not just as a shrine and place of pilgrimage—but as the very spiritual heart of Native American Catholicism. A place where we cease treating Native Catholicism as either a impoverished backwater corruption of Latin Christianity or as an experimental laboratory of multiculturalism. Both errors stem from the same misunderstanding of history—that the Native Church is devoid of any independant history or patrimony of its own. It is time now to put an end to the extremes of "assimilationism" and "inculturationism" and simply take Native America's Catholic traditions as seriously as they deserve to be treated.

To that end, the mission of St. Francis Xavier has a special role to play. As the former capital and keeper of the fire of the Seven Indian Nations of Canada, Kahnawaké stands as the guardian of traditions both sacred and secular. It was founded by native Christians for native Christians. It was peopled by perhaps the most pious Catholic community in American history, and some of its greatest lights. It houses Kateri's mortal remains, and ever been the destination of pilgrims. It has a distinctive liturgical tradition which, hundreds of years before Vatican II, incorporated native language into the traditional Roman Rite. It has sent Iroquois lay missionaries far into the western wilds of Canada and the United States, to spread the faith of the Black Robes and their "Great Prayer" all the way to the Pacific Ocean. It even has its own native martyrs, though ones who lack any ecclesiastical recognition as such.

Every Rite within the Catholic Church is oriented to the heavenly Jerusalem through an earthly center: as Rome for the Latins, Constantinople for the Greeks, Antioch for the Syrians, Alexandria for the Egyptians, Axum for the Ethiopians, and very recently after a long exile, Kiev for the Ukrainians. Without such an anchoring center, the children of the Church are in danger of drifting.

It is fitting that Kahnawake be such a center for Native American Catholics today: to be the focus around which other missions like Akwesasne, Oka and Odanak can feel part of a larger and unified whole.

Introibo Ad Altare Dei.....

"I think it's because it was the wisdom of way back when, which some people seem to overlook: that we were allowed to be us and still be practicing Catholics. I just think it was so close to the spiritual...the spirituality of the natives…is so close. I just think it was an easy step for the Jesuits to convert."

—Carol Ross, member of the Mohawk choir at St. Regis in Akwesasne

If your Catholic education was anything like mine, you may remember that glib and rather inaccurate way some folks condescended to the old Latin Mass: "the priest had his back to the people!"

With such a characterization rattling around unchallenged in my young skull, you can surely understand that in those days I was not particularly anxious for a return to pre-Vatican II piety. It's only now as an adult, after having strayed and eventually by the grace of God wandered back into His fold, that a more mature study has begun to open my eyes to the wisdom, the symbolism, reverence and mysticism of the traditional Roman liturgy. Add to that study a parallel interest in the other rites of Catholic Christianity—Coptic, Syriac, Byzantine, Gallican—and a further conclusion becomes inescapable. The Church truly is, and has always been, a Catholic Church in more than name only. Not a Church for Europeans, not a Church for Middle Easterners, but a Church for the whole world, in which every culture, every race, every nation from Sweden to South Africa, from China to Canada has something worthwhile to contribute.

God willing, I'm hoping to accomplish a couple of things with this site. First of all, to promote what has remained the great forgotten story of North American history: the Catholic Indian missions, and how they embedded an intensely pious traditional Catholicism into their own native cultures and modes of expression. Secondly, I hope this to be a forum where those of us who share Carol Ross's respect for the "wisdom of way back when" can exchange ideas about how best to revive and restore venerable American Catholic traditions to the way we live our faith at the dawn of the third millennium.

Catholic traditions are not museum pieces to be studied—they are meant to be interwoven into the fabric of our everyday lives. I pray that all of us: American Indians, Anglo-Americans, and even second-generation immigrant children like myself, promote these traditions in a way not that inflates our own importance, but which best gives glory to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

A.M.D.G.

-Claudio