The tomb of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the faith of Mohawk Catholics

Faith Full Catholic Podcast

It’s been 12 years since St. Kateri Tekakwitha ("The Lily of the Mohawks") was declared a saint by the Catholic church, in October 2012. She was a Mohawk/Algonquin woman who lived in the late 17th century in present-day New York and Quebec, declaring herself a virgin for Christ. Her sainthood has sparked both pride and soul-searching within and beyond Canada’s First Nations. St. Kateri’s earthly remains are entombed at the National Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine, in St. Francis Xavier Mission Catholic Church in Kahnawake, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal.

The church is not far from the Kateri school and Kateri Memorial Hospital—visible reminders that she lived here, or nearby, in a Catholic community before her death at age 24.

Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. In this episode we are not retelling St. Kateri’s life story, but rather we’re bringing you voices from a few members of the present-day Catholic community in Kahnawake: Beverly Anna Sky Dolormier, a volunteer named Marian, and Fr. Richard Saint-Louis.

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Before we explore St. Kateri, we need to be transparent: there are many serious issues that may cloud discussions involving the Catholic Church that we won’t fully be able to explore. The Church has a complicated history and present here. Jesuits, known as the Black Robes, evangelized as European powers colonized North America. Over centuries, the systems put in place to govern these territories have wrested ancestral lands, water rights, and more, from the indigenous peoples. Church-affiliated residential schools separated children from their families and culture in the name of assimilation. Despite public apologies from Pope Francis, the reports of abuses committed at those schools have left societal wounds that, for some, may never fully heal.

But for some Catholics, faith bears witness to their resilience.