About 50 people gathered Aug. 29 in St. Benedict Church to pray for those harmed in Native American boarding schools.

The prayer service for truth and reconciliation was hosted by St. Benedict’s Pathways Toward Peace ministry and the St. Kateri Center of Chicago, “the voice, presence and identity of spirituality and prayer of the American Indian community within the Archdiocese of Chicago,” according to the center’s website.

Jody Roy, director of the Kateri Center, asked those who attended to take a pinch of tobacco and add it to a burning bowl as they held in their hearts prayers for those harmed in the residential schools.

Tobacco, she said, is seen by indigenous people as a gift from God. Its smoke is believed to carry prayer to the Creator.

The unidentified remains of more than 7,000 children have been found at the sites of former residential schools, mostly in Canada but some in the United States. Roy said she believes that number will grow as remains are sought at more schools in the U.S. Some of the schools were run by Catholic religious orders.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a Puebla of Laguna who is the first Native American to hold the post, announced a comprehensive review of the federal boarding schools in June.

The schools were intended to stamp out native languages and cultures. Children were taken from their families, had their clothing replaced and their hair cut, and were punished for speaking their own languages.

The schools began with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819. The last one did not close until more than 150 years later.

“There was all kinds of abuse, physical, mental and sexual,” Roy said, adding that her aunts and uncles suffered abuse of all three kinds in such schools.

Many of the participants wore orange, a color intended to signify that “every child matters.” Roy said orange comes from the story of one girl who survived residential school. She was taken from her family wearing an orange shirt made by her grandmother; when she arrived at the school, the shirt was taken from her and she never saw it again.

Father Stephen Kanonik, St. Benedict’s pastor, said the prayer service could become an annual occurrence. It came from the cooperation of the St. Kateri Center, which is housed at St. Benedict, and Pathways Toward Peace, a ministry founded in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Parishioners at St. Benedict, 2215 W. Irving Park Road, often express gratitude for the blessings they have received, Kanonik said, but they are called to do more.

“It became clear that there are things that happen in our society that are damaging and hurtful to people,” he said. “It’s not enough to say we have these blessings. We have an obligation to try to make life better for people.”

Members of Pathways Toward Peace and the Kateri Center organized a July showing of the 2017 film “Indian Horse” before planning the Aug. 29 service. Seeing the movie helped educate parishioners, Kanonik said.

“Many of us had no idea, didn’t realize the things that had been done,” Kanonik said. “We’ve only begun to understand the disrespect and the hurt and the pain that was caused. … What was worse, for us as a Catholic community, was finding out that we participated in running some of these schools and we participated in that disrespect.”

Catholics must recognize that all people are a reflection of God, Kanonik said: all people and all languages and cultures, and to disrespect that is to disrespect God.

The Gospel reading for the prayer service was from Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus tells his followers they will be judged on how they treated “the least of these,” the poor and the vulnerable.

“Every one of us will make mistakes, will choose poorly, at times will hurt other people,” Kanonik said. “If in time we see that, Christ will help us change and he will forgive us. As a first step, as a group, we want to gather to pray for those who have been harmed in residential schools, and for their families and for the pain that was caused, to change who we are to help us to care for other people.”

Deacon Bill Frere, who ministers part-time at the St. Kateri Center, assisted at the service. Because the Kateri Center chapel is small, the center has been unable to host its own Masses with adequate social distancing, so some of its rituals have been incorporated into the St. Benedict 10 a.m. Sunday Mass twice a month.

While that has made the St. Benedict Parish community and the St. Kateri Center community more visible to one another, it is not a perfect solution because some St. Kateri Center members are uncomfortable entering the big church. They also miss the community created by the potluck lunches that follow Masses for members of the indigenous community.

Roy said St. Kateri Center members are considering participating in both the parish-wide Masses and celebrating on their own to help parishioners develop awareness of the native community. They would also be willing to host similar prayer services in other parishes, she said.

Viatorian Brother John Eustice attended the service. It made him consider his own heritage, including at least one ancestor who was in the military in the 17th or 18th century, “protecting” European settlements from indigenous people, and the family farm in western Illinois that sits on land that was once home to native people.

“My people were part of this system,” said Eustice, a vocation director who is studying at Catholic Theological Union.

The service offers a way forward, he said.

“It’s a sign of healing, personally and as a country,” he said. “We live in this community, and it’s up to us deal with what happened.”