Seeking Forgiveness, Building Communion:
A Time for Atoning and Reconciling

by
Most Rev. Donald E. Pelotte, SSS, Ph.D.
Bishop of Gallup, New Mexico

Los Angeles
July 6, 2000

Good afternoon!

I am Bishop Donald Pelotte, a Blessed Sacrament Father, who is bishop of the Diocese of Gallup, half of which is in New Mexico and half in Arizona–covering 55,000 square miles. The majority of the Catholics in my diocese are Native Americans–53% Catholics of a population of approximately 45,000 Catholics from seven different tribes. In 1986, at th age of 39, I was asked by our Holy Father to go to this diocese in the Southwest to serve as the third bishop of Gallup. When I was selected by the pope, I know that my Native American ancestry had much to do with his decision, for I was born in Maine, from a Franco-American mother and a Canadian-Indian father of the Abenaki/Algonquin Nation. It was not unusual for French Americans from Maine to intermarry with French-speaking Native people from Maine or Canada. As a young boy I lived through a lot of the pain young Indians of my diocese struggle with daily: dire poverty, dilapidated housing, no toilet facilities or electricity, in a dysfunctional home situation with an alcoholic, physically abusive father who ended up a suicide like so many of our Indian people today. As you see, I survived it as did my twin brother who I ordained a priest last September. On the other hand, my two older brothers did not do as well and neither survived this struggle.

Because of what I have just shared, I now serve in a unique role of being a Native/indigenous bishop of our Church, seeking in the name of our Church, seeking in the name of our Church reconciliation with the Native people of our country and hemisphere, especially those in my diocese.

Since the arrival of the colonizers just over five hundred and eight years ago, our Native people have suffered much and continue to do so. They continue to be among the poorest of the poor especially those living on reservations. Many of our Native people were baptized, but, in the process vast numbers were robbed of their cultural identity. While many indigenous peoples from a rich diversity of cultures embrace the Risen Lord, so many today remain ambivalent about Christianity and many others reject it completely. In my fourteen years as bishop I have worked tirelessly in making it clear that the Church is sorry for past mistakes and actively seeks reconciliation as our Holy Father has urged us to do and has done himself so eloquently over th years. For example, just now I am in active dialogue with the Hopi Nation, a very small, traditional tribe which suffered much and lost much during the missionary efforts of the Europeans. My last meeting with them was on June 13th, 2000 and they still are very cautious and uncertain about my efforts at reconciliation. Nonetheless, they are open to allow us to prove that we are indeed serious about healing the past by asking us for support of their efforts to have justice regarding treaty rights, land and water rights, education, housing, health care, social services, training in jobs, and the use of sacred lands. They also need our help in eliminating the debilitating poverty they suffer and our support in helping them eradicate drug and alcohol abuse and their effects.

As a Catholic community which was so much part of their history, we must advocate for their survival or risk losing them forever. In my diocese we are hard at work in trying to accomplish this while trying to strengthen those already happily within the Catholic Faith by training indigenous leaders, ordained and lay, as part of a serious effort at inculturation. It is working. Slowly, but surely. While our Native people cannot fully forget the past, it is clear most are ready to move forward together into the future. Encuentro 2000 provides an historic moment to say: "We're sorry." So that together we can commit ourselves to creating a better future for them and for ourselves.

Most Rev. Donald E. Pelotte, SSS, PH.D.
Bishop of Gallup, New Mexico




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Encuentro 2000
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3413