As you know, the primary visionary of the North American Martyrs was Jean de Brébeuf, SJ. There is a lot of information around about our brother Jesuits and the hardships they suffered. To simply live in “the woods” with all the bugs and normal outdoor life, day in and day out without their culture and “civilization” as they knew it was I believe very heroic.

Brébeuf’s dream was a church that is fully Indian and fully Catholic. That simple formula, which Fr. Dick Mercy , SJ loved and internalized, is a very good good one. That ideal was what inspired us at Kateri Northwest Ministry Institute. Brébeuf could see and believed in everything that was beautiful among the Native People. Their culture did not blind all of them to the Natives’ goodness and gentleness. The Jesuits’ ability to see through the eyes of love made it possible for them to see all the gifts the Native People had before we arrived in America. The term “Fully Native” truly honors their culture, their pathways and spirituality. It acknowledges the incarnation in various forms and religions. At the same time, Brébeuf was not shy about his faith in Christ and Catholicism. Their inculturation was admirable and truly radical and difficult, especially before European culture became dominant.

When the martyred Jesuits were canonized the Church did not canonize any of the martyred Native People who also gave their lives for the faith and suffered death. I believe the Church lost an opportunity on that one, and I think the Jesuits would have voted for the official canonization of the Native saints. They have most likely got over that by now; guess I may as well do the same.

Fr. Tom Colgan, SJ is currently Associate Campus Minister at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York and previously served the Church and the Native Peoples in the Kateri Northwest Ministry Institute here in the Northwest