‘God’s hands and feet’
Laity, religious team up to serve Native American Catholics

By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
March 15, 2007

SANTAN, Ariz. — Wearing an eye patch and a leather jacket, Elmer Pratt marched down the aisle at St. Anne Mission, carrying the processional cross in his hands. He limped as he walked because he lost some of his toes to diabetes.

Pratt, a Pima Indian, started going to church there when he was just small. Now the Vietnam veteran is an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, a lector and takes Communion to the homebound, mostly tribal elders.

“It hurts me because I feel like I can’t do anything for them. The Lord comes and takes them away,” the 58-year-old Pratt said. The gristly man’s throat tightened and his eyes filled with tears.

“It makes me feel older because they pass away,” he said. “It seems like the Lord is the only one that’s keeping me alive to go through all this.”

Pratt is just one of the many Native Americans who help spread the Good News in the Phoenix Diocese. The Office of Native American Ministry and St. Peter Mission School in Bapchule serve hand in hand with the laity to bring others closer to Christ.

A tradition of service

The Phoenix Diocese has been serving the Native American population since its establishment in 1969. Deacon Joseph “Tom” Swisher has been lending a hand since 1979.

“I’ve seen it go from a scattered, individual type of ministry to a ministry with a director and an office downtown” at the Diocesan Pastoral Center in Phoenix, he said. “It’s growing.”

The ministry also has grown in its service of county jails, he said, noting that priests heard confessions at the Gila River facility on Ash Wednesday.

“We’re starting to reach out into the areas that we either haven’t been to or have fallen into disarray,” he said. “We’re starting to pick it up.”

Franciscan Father Dale Jamison is helping things along. Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted appointed Fr. Jamison as director of the Office of Native American Ministry last October. The priest had been ministering to Puebla Indian communities in New Mexico.

Catholicism is quite compatible with Native American culture, Fr. Jamison said.

“One of the attractive things about the Catholic Church is that it’s very ritualistic, very traditional,” he said. “It’s attractive to many Native Americans from that aspect.”

Yet Fr. Jamison insisted that Native American Catholics cannot and should not be pigeonholed.

“They’re the same as any body else. Some are very sensitive and attune to spiritual things, some are not,” he said.

Liturgies at the different missions vary. At St. Anne Mission in Santan, there’s no music, while at St. Anthony Mission in Sacaton, a guitar-driven group leads the songs.

Last month Fr. Jamison took the new director of the national Black and Indian Mission Office, Fr. Wayne Paysse, on a tour of the different Native American churches, visiting 10 of 11 missions.

“I want to be one with them and appreciate their tradition and spirituality,” Fr. Paysse said. His office supports the bishops in spreading the mission of the Church.

At the end of Feb. 11 Mass at St. Anthony, Fr. Paysse called parish children to the front of the sanctuary.

He held in his hand a Jacob’s ladder, an early-American wooden toy made of different-colored rectangles connected by string.

“We are different, we’re all individuals,” he said. “But we’re all connected in our baptism. We’re connected in the love of Jesus.”

In his role as director, Fr. Paysse wants to promote education, a renewal of catechesis and, especially, vocations.

“You need to talk to Jesus and ask Him if He wants you to be a priest,” Fr. Paysse said to the children Feb. 13 at St. Peter Mission School.

Vocations are essential if Mass is to be celebrated each week at Native American missions. They, like other Catholics, have needs and hungers that can only be satisfied by the sacraments, Fr. Jamison said.

“They want the sacraments, the Eucharist,” he said. “Our lives are transformed on that altar like the Body and Blood of Christ are transformed.”

Retired priests — like Carmelite Father Valentine Boyle, Franciscan Father Matthias Crehan and Fr. Edward Meulmans — help provide Mass at Arizona missions across the vast diocese.

That said, Deacon Swisher noted that there’s still room to grow. He’d like to see more work done in Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Peach Springs and Camp Verde, where pockets of Catholic Native Americans reside.

Another struggle is the eroding buildings, Deacon Swisher said, noting in particular St. Francis of Assisi in Ak-Chin.

“It was built in 1921 and there’s been very little done to build a new church or expand,” he said.

“We have an outhouse there, a port-a-potty, instead of a bathroom with running water,” he explained. “There’s no heating or air conditioning.”

Masses in the summer and winter are not as well attended, Fr. Jamison said, adding that wearing priestly vestments in 112-degree weather is “not fun.”

Still another challenge the ministry faces is the large Native American population in the Valley, said Deacon Sid Martin, the parish life coordinator at St. Peter Parish in Sacaton and four missions.

He said there are 23 different tribes registered in Arizona and the largest population is in the Valley. Deacon Martin estimated 268,000 Native Americans live in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Fr. Jamison said this “floating community,” which could total as many as 60,000 Catholics, doesn’t have a regular place to meet.

If this community were given its own church, it could potentially form the largest parish in the diocese, he said.

Many outsiders think the biggest challenge on the reservation is alcoholism, but former Major League Baseball player Joe Garagiola thinks differently. He’s been serving St. Peter Mission School for more than 10 years.

“The biggest problem among our people at St. Peter’s and the Pima Indians is diabetes. And the second one is obesity,” he said.

That’s why regular physical exercise, a healthy breakfast and lunch are so important at the school, Garagiola said.

“A lot of our kids, instead of writing on the blackboard when they get a little mischief in their lives, the teacher makes them do laps,” he said. “We don’t have one child with diabetes in our school.

“When 80 percent of your people are below the poverty level, they’re going to have to get help from somewhere,” Garagiola said.

Funding outreach

The Office of Native American Ministry receives funding from the Charity and Development Appeal, the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions and private donations.

Yet money for capital expenses comes mostly from private individuals. Garagiola knows this as well as anyone.

Last month, Comfort Inn donated blankets and Hampton Inn donated 100 chairs to St. Peter school, Garagiola said.

Garth Brooks held a banquet that was instrumental in buying a bus. The Arizona Diamondbacks donated T-shirts.

Tempe Decorating provided flooring and labor for the new school library. Spray Systems took care of mold.

The list goes on.

“This is Catholics and non-Catholics, friends and people who have heard about our plight,” Garagiola said.

The new library will offer the students a much-needed study space.

“Right now we can only allow six little guys, but four is usually the most that can come in,” he said. “They get their books and have to leave so that four more can come in.”

In his voice, Garagiola betrays his commitment to the students at the Native American school. He loves them, he said, and they teach him.

Twice a day, Garagiola said, the students pray, “Lord, teach me to know that every day and down every street come chances to be God’s hands and feet.”

For Garagiola, that says it all.

“We have to be God’s hands and feet. My involvement boils down to that simple sentence,” he said. “We are God’s hands and feet. That’s what it’s all about.”