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Shoebox find leads to book on first American Indian religious order |
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By George P. Matysek Jr. - Catholic News Service
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009 |
 When 12-year-old Thomas Foley opened a shoebox in his Aunt Mame’s closet more than 65 years ago, he unwittingly uncovered the building blocks for a remarkable story of faith, courage and determination.
The box contained the personal journals and papers of Father Francis
Craft, a 19th-century missionary to American Indians who died in the
arms of Foley’s father in 1920. The treasure trove of documents
included a letter from Sitting Bull and handwritten religious vows
taken by young Lakota Sioux women, along with a photograph of Father
Craft.
The boy’s discovery was the first step in what would become a lifelong
quest to learn more about an independent-minded, forward-thinking
priest and the first women’s religious order for American Indians,
which he founded.
‘Among the people’
His research took the author to monasteries and Indian reservations in
the Dakotas, and archives in Washington, New York, Belgium and Rome.
How to order
Copies of “Faces of Faith” may be ordered by calling the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions at: (202) 331-8542, or by writing to: Father Wayne Paysse, Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 2021 H St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20006.
The suggested donation for the book is $20, which includes shipping and handling; checks should be made out to “Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions.”
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“Faces of Faith: A History of the First Order of Indian Sisters” is a
new book published by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, under the
direction of Father Wayne Paysse, executive director.
In the book, Foley tells the story of how the Congregation of American
Sisters came to be, its many struggles and its ultimate dissolution.
“Father Craft was way ahead of his time,” said Foley, who wrote a
biography of Father Craft in 2002. “He was a medical doctor, and he
taught these women nursing skills. Father Craft’s sisters were among
the people.”
Father Craft, who was part Mohawk, had a fundamental respect for
American Indians and treated them with dignity, according to Foley.
“If you look at the pictures of his sisters, they look like pictures of
sisters anywhere else in the world,” said Foley, a retired labor
personnel executive who lives in Georgia. “He was presenting these
sisters as equal to any coming out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
An Episcopalian who became a Catholic and a former soldier who enlisted
at age 10 in the Union Army during the Civil War, Father Craft joined
the Jesuits in 1876. He left the religious order to become a missionary
to American Indians and in 1883 was ordained by Bishop Martin Marty to
serve the Dakota Territory.
Father Craft, who was injured in the battle at Wounded Knee, first
served in the Dakotas on the Rosebud Reservation before moving to
Standing Rock Reservation and then Fort Berthold. He often butted heads
with religious and governmental authorities, some of whom regarded him
as an eccentric crank.
Remembering a heroic effort
The Congregation of American Sisters grew to about a dozen sisters at
its height in the 1890s. It ultimately ended as the Sisters of the
Blessed Sacrament — St. Katharine Drexel’s religious order devoted to
American Indians and African-Americans — increased in popularity. St.
Katharine funded her outreach with a $15 million inheritance.
Asked what he wanted readers to remember from his book, Foley choked up for a moment before responding.
“There’s a place and a time where people embarked on heroic efforts and
100 years later, no one knows or cares,” he said. “They tried so hard
for a decade. I want people to know what they tried to accomplish.”
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