July 31, 2008 — When Eleanor St. John was a young mother, she thought she had to give up her Ho-Chunk heritage in order to be Catholic.

But then the 61-year-old learned about Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk woman being considered for sainthood by the Roman Catholic church, met other American Indian Catholics, and her perspective changed.

Archbishop Raymond Burke blesses the statue of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha that sits along the Devotional Trail at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Dick Riniker photo

“I was so stupid to think I had to put my native identity away when it was there all along in the Catholic faith,” said St. John of La Crosse. “She has given me a sense of security and pride.”

The third day of dedication week at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrated the life of Tekakwitha, who died in 1680 at age 24.

With a sculpture of Tekakwitha unveiled at a 1 p.m. ceremony, the day’s events tied the Shrine to another prominent figure in the life of the Roman Catholic church in the Americas. On Monday, a sculpture of St. Juan Diego, an indigenous Mexican who is said to have had a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in 1531, was unveiled in the Shrine Church plaza.

“Today, it feels like (Tekakwitha) is being embedded even more so in my Catholic faith,” said St. John, a member of the Shrine’s board of directors, before Mass Wednesday morning at the Shrine’s Pilgrim Center.

In 1980, Pope John Paul II beatified Tekakwitha, which is the final major step before one can reach sainthood.

Monsignor Paul Lenz, vice-postulator for the cause of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, gave a breakfast lecture and a sermon at Mass about Tekakwitha.

For almost a year, Lenz, 82, from Washington, D.C., has been assembling documentation of a miracle attributed to Tekakwitha, which he will soon send to the Vatican to be considered in the cause of her sainthood.

“For over 300 years it was always what the Catholic Church did for the Native Americans,” Lenz said. “Now with great honor the Indians can say what they’ve done for the church, if she’s named a saint.”

Also in attendance on Wednesday was Sister Kateri Mitchell, executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference in Great Falls, Mont.

Mitchell’s mother comes from the same Turtle Clan in the Mohawk Nation that Tekakwitha was adopted into after her parents died of smallpox. Mitchell took the name “Kateri” when she entered the Sisters of St. Anne 46 years ago.

By embracing both her Mohawk heritage and the Catholicism she was baptized into as a baby, Mitchell said she can walk a “holistic path.”

Both the turtle and the Christian cross are sacred symbols for her.

“The spirituality of the turtle is one of sacredness and closeness to the Earth,” she said. “The Earth is the center of our lives physically, but spiritually it’s a real center for me.”

She called the cross the “tree of life” and an image of life and death.

On Wednesday, Archbishop Raymond Burke recognized Mitchell’s presence after he dedicated the statue of Tekakwitha, located along the meditation trail that leads to the Shrine Church.

While her traditional medicine wheel includes all races, Mitchell said, “the red race is still sort of a weak presence in the church.”

“We have been such an invisible part of the human race,” she said. “We feel if we can have a saint — which we do, but which the church will proclaim — then we will truly feel that we are part of the church, and the sacred circle of life will be whole.”

Tekakwitha’s relics will be carried into the Shrine Church at the dedication Mass today.

Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or jorso@lacrossetribune.com.

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