As my wife Lynn and I come to the end of our 5th Idaho Montana tour we are sitting on Buffalo Creek in Island Park. We have followed the trail of Lewis and Clark Eastward through the Lolo Pass and then North along the Bitterroot River to the Clark’s Fork and then East and North to the Dear Born and Marias Rivers where Meriwether Lewis confronted a band of Blackfoot Warriors prior to his trip down the Marias to the Missouri River where he met up with Clark just South of today’s Williston North Dakota.
Much has been written about the early explorers of the Pacific Northwest in both the lay and academic literature and recently in the mainstream press supporting a political narrative of white misogynistic supremacy and Christian exploitation of the native culture. Here are some facts to consider when thinking about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the travels of the Jesuit Fathers in the Pacific Northwest:
Lewis and Clark traveled over 4000 miles from St. Louis to Ft. Clatsop on the Oregon Coast and back to St. Louis in three years—on horseback, canoe and mostly by foot. How many of those media pundits and political operatives who have been critical of the “white man’s” exploitation would have such courage?
Over forty years Fr. John Peter Desmet traveled over 160,000 miles on foot, horse and boat and proselytized to the native Americans. One of his best friends in life was the legendary Sioux warrior Crazy Horse who became a Catholic convert as did his friend and rival Sitting Bull. Also establishing deep friendships with Chief Seattle, Chief Joseph, and Red Cloud, the process of both conversion and assimilation that the Jesuit Fathers deployed are worthy of study. In stead of trying to enforce their culture on the Native Americans, they assimilated themselves into the culture of those they proselytized.
When traveling up the Bitterroot Valley my wife Lynn and I always stop by the St. Ignatius Parish and School on the Flathead Indian reservation. In the sanctuary on the sidewalls as in every Catholic Church are THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS. On the ceiling is the story of Fr. Desmet, Fr. Ravalli, and the Flathead and Salish Indians. On the back wall is a picture of Jesus dressed as a Nez Perce Indian Chief. As C. S. Lewis opined over one hundred years later “the only way for man to approach God is through Jesus Christ, but God can approach man in any manner He wants”. The Jesuits understood this down to their very corps.
Over the past several years Jesuit statutes have been destroyed in our country and in Canada. There is no question that ecclesiastical abuses occurred during the settlement of the Pacific Northwest. The overwhelming number of Jesuit Fathers and Sisters were devout, pious and contributed positively to the growth of the Pacific Northwest and our country. We are all the better for their sacrifices and devotion.
Just like today in our present time and in our country the great majority of Catholic Fathers and Sisters are devout and pious, but the “sins of the few have been inflicted on the many”. The percentage of those abusing children and the marginalized who are Catholic religious, is far smaller than those who have chosen to be elementary teachers, pediatricians, and Scout Masters, yet contrary to Plato’s Fallacy of Composition, the sins of the few are placed on the those who are most Holy amongst us.
So how many amongst us today would be willing to give up a life of leisure—like Father Desmet did, and travel 160,000 miles over forty years on foot to serve a people who were as different from him as anything we could imagine our differences are today in our country?
Such a man and such a group of men and women are worthy of at least our respect and maybe even our veneration. If ever the idea of “service before self” was lived out in real life, it was by those Catholic Religious who assimilated into the lives and families of the Nez Perce, Salish, Flatheads and Sioux.
Their lives and witness are worthy of study without the false narrative of revisionist history being made to distort their accomplishments and profound devotion to God and those they served and truly loved. Thanks be to God and to the Jesuit Fathers and to Lewis and Clark.
