The Roman Catholic Church played a large role in the abuse of Native American children sent to boarding schools throughout the 20th century.
In June, bishops from around the U.S. wrote a letter apologizing for the church’s role in suppressing Native American culture with boarding schools.
“The family systems of many Indigenous people never fully recovered from these tragedies, which often led to broken homes harmed by addiction, domestic abuse, abandonment and neglect,” church leadership said in the 56-page document.
Following suit, Northern Michigan churches are inviting native communities to hear their stories and discuss potential reparations this weekend.
Sister Sue Gardner is organizing the event. She says it's the fourth such meeting between tribal and church leadership.
“We're just hoping to get the information out from the letter and to then dialog with the Native Americans and see what they would see as possibilities to go forward,” she said.
Yvonne Keshik, an artist and member of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, said it's the first meeting to be called to discuss the legacy of the boarding schools.
She said she’ll share her experiences of attending Holy Childhood School of Jesus in Harbor Springs with the diocese.
"The nuns ... beat me up quite a few times. They were totally ignorant about our culture," she said. "They banned us from speaking our own language. I was not a fluent speaker, but I saw other fluent speakers getting knocked around for speaking their language, our language.”
Holy Childhood is considered the the first federally run boarding school in Michigan. It was also the last to close in the 1980s.
Keshik and other tribal members have asked for recognition of unmarked graves around boarding schools and for better acknowledgment of their ancestral land and culture.
The conference is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 5 at the headquarters for the Catholic Diocese in Gaylord.
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