The Jesuit Mission to the Lakota Sioux: Pastoral Theology and Ministry, 1886-1945 by Ross Alexander Enochs

Abstract

book reviews523 The Jesuit Mission to the Lakota Sioux: Pastoral Theology and Ministry, 1886-1945. By Ross Alexander Enochs. (Kansas City, Missouri: Sheed and Ward. 1996. Pp. x, 178. $12.95 paperback.) Jesuit priests, building on the work of earUer missionaries, began missions to the Lakotas (Holy Rosary at Pine Ridge Reservation and St. Francis at Rosebud) in 1886.They had a remarkably successful pastoral ministry among these Indians during the six decades covered by this smaU but valuable book. The book has a clear purpose: to refute the judgments made by other authors that the Jesuits viewed the native Lakota reUgion as heathenism dominated by the devU and that Lakotas could not participate in Indian ceremonies and stül be Catholic. On the contrary, Ross Enochs says, "The Jesuits accepted many aspects of Lakota culture and participated in several Lakota rituals and customs throughout this time among the Lakotas. Furthermore . . . [they] sought to preserve those aspects of Lakota culture and religion that they beüeved were good, and attempted to aboUsh only those practices and beliefs that they thought were in conflict with either the Catholic faith or the Lakotas' wellbeing " (p. viU). To make his point, Enochs discusses at some length the educational program of the Jesuits, the popular Catholic Sioux Congresses that flourished in this period , the extensive use of Lakota catechists (including the famous Black Elk), and the promotion of Lakota language and legends. He provides briefer notices of other missionary adaptations—in funeral rituals, art, processions, dances and games, use of the calumet or sacred pipe, and adoption and naming ceremonies .These early Jesuits were able to build Catholic faith and ceremonies on Indian foundations because they learned the Indians' language and to a large extent shared their life. Enochs does not fail to note, however, the missionaries' strong condemnation of the medicine men and of polygamy and easy divorce and their fight against the aboriginal sun dance and peyote and ghost dance religions.This opposition to significant Indian ways weakens somewhat the book's major theme, but the author is convincing in his assertions that those Indians who converted to Christianity did so willingly and that conversion was not forced upon them. Basing his study on exhaustive research in missionary records and on interviews with Indians and with missionaries, Enochs has produced not so much a critical evaluation of the missionary endeavor as a sympathetic descriptive account of how the Jesuits related to the Lakotas and of the Lakotas' positive response . Enochs ends his story in 1945, a point at which he sees major changes on the reservations resulting from World War II, the strong secularization in the dominantAmerican culture surrounding them, and changes in Catholic mission theory. 524book reviews The book is simply an unrevised doctoral dissertation Ln pubUshed form.That is unfortunate, for careful revision and editing would have greatly strengthened the presentation and eliminated irritating elements of dissertation style. Francis Paul Prucha, SJ. Marquette University The Ecumenical Orthodoxy ofCharles Augustus Briggs, 1841-1913- By Richard L. Christensen. (Lewiston, NewYork: MeUen University Press. 1995. Pp. vU, 236. $89.95.) At a party given in 1907 to honor the publication of Charles Briggs's Church Unity,WUliam Reed Huntington—the moving spirit behind the ecumenical efforts of turn-of-the-century Episcopalians—toasted his friend Briggs for the "softeness ofhis heart and the hardness ofhis head." (No, asAnna Russell would say, I'm not making this up.) A pretty shrewd judge of character, Huntington "got it" just about right in summing up the personaUty of the man more distrusted by evangeUcal conservatives and more lionized by theological Uberals than almost any other in GUded-Age America. Indeed, one might argue that the various "heresy trials" that Briggs underwent between 1891 and 1893 over his biblical theories—trials that represented a defining moment in the history of American religion in a way analogous to the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century and the "MonkeyTrial" of 1925—were due in no smaU measure to Brigg's warm-hearted but bellicose personaUty. Richard Christensen has published a finely crafted and engaging study ofthis complex and crucial figure who helped define the battle lines between the...