Cardinal Wilton Gregory marked the start of National Native American Heritage Month by celebrating Mass with students and parish members at St. Mary’s Catholic Church of Piscataway in Clinton, Maryland, on Nov. 3. 

St. Mary’s Church is home to many relics of its history that date back to the 1600s when Jesuit priests arrived in the colony that is present-day Maryland. A Roman Missal from 1637, antique stereo cards and stereoscopes are among the artifacts on display there.

The parish’s website highlights its special history, noting that St. Mary’s Catholic Church of Piscataway is the fourth oldest parish in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, and it traces its beginning to 1640, when Jesuit Father Andrew White, who arrived with the first group of English settlers to Maryland six years earlier, baptized Chitomachen, the chief of the Piscataway Indians.

During his homily, the cardinal told students about Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation and an athlete who was the first Native American to win gold medals for the United States in the Olympics, after winning the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. Thorpe, who also played professional football and baseball, faced racism and discrimination throughout his life. 

“Native Americans everywhere ought to know and be proud of his greatness and his God-given athletic skills and the achievements he accomplished. We celebrate Native American History Month so that our brothers and sisters who claim that precious heritage will rejoice in the great things that Native Americans have made in society and continue to make,” Cardinal Gregory said.

Cardinal Gregory stressed the importance of young people having positive heroes to look up to.

“Young people are always looking for heroes to emulate and to admire. Occasionally, some of those who might appear to be worthy heroes are not the types of people that any youth should honor,” Cardinal Gregory said. “The saints are heroes for the entire Church, and even some of them had to struggle to stay on the right path in life.”

The cardinal mentioned St. Kateri Tekakwitha, who was Algonquin–Mohawk and whose family died in the 1600s of smallpox. St. Kateri’s miracles were posthumous, where people were cured of their ailments through her relics. 

After celebrating the Mass, Cardinal Gregory walked outside the church to the parish cemetery, where he offered a special prayer for All Souls Day.

Following the Mass, parishioner Elizabeth Althea Proctor, who grew up in Maryland and was the second oldest of 12, said both sides of her family descend from the Piscataway people. 

“My father made his First Holy Communion right here at St. Mary’s in the little church, what I call the little church, our chapel,” Proctor said. “It makes me proud whenever I come here knowing that I'm walking on the grounds of my father. His parents lived about a mile and a half from here when they used to have a home back in probably the early 1930s.”

Growing up, Proctor not only faced the stigma of being a person of color, but also of not even being recognized as a Native American. She said the options in official documents for race were limited to either Black or White. 

“That hurt [my grandmother] for a long time because she would often say, ‘But I’m Indian,’” Proctor said. "One of my mother’s goals when my grandmother died was to make sure the death certificate under race indicated Indian. I was just so proud of her.”

This impacted many aspects of her life, including where she could attend school growing up. 

“We could only go to an African American school back at that time… A lot of the kids would look at us and say, ‘Why? What are they?’ and question us,” Proctor said. For high school, she had to take a bus to a school 21 miles away, at Frederick Douglass High School.

Proctor recalled an act of violent discrimination from her childhood.

“My father became a federal protection officer, and he was promoted to be a sergeant. I may have been around seven years old. When he was promoted, the KKK came to our house and burned these crosses,” Proctor said. “I remember my sister grabbing me and me screaming.”

She said one of the neighbors found out about the promotion due to her father’s uniform shirt color changing due to the promotion. Because they could not afford to move, they stayed at that house.

Proctor said her family often told her to pray in the face of adversity and turn to her faith. 

“My parents taught us, don’t tell anyone your business, keep everything to yourself, do what is right, stay within your faith. God will protect us,” Proctor said. “They kept saying, ‘Go to church, pray on it.’ They kept instilling into us our faith.”

Proctor explained why it’s important to celebrate National Native American Heritage Month and reflected on what people should take away from events like the Mass highlighting that heritage. 

“We’re all human beings, and we’re all created equal. Just because my skin may be a little lighter, a little darker, whatever, that shouldn’t make a difference. We should all love one another because we are human beings. Everything I see that’s going on in the world today…we just got back from Israel. When I looked at [the war], and then look at where I have come from, I understand some of the tensions because of where I’ve come from and being misunderstood. People should realize we’re all human. My hair may be a little bit longer than yours...so be it. I may speak a little differently than someone, or I may have a Southern accent. We’re all human beings. In the eyes of God, really, we’re all equal,” Proctor said.