The Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council meets in Ottawa Nov. 24. (Left) Dennis Whitford, Msgr. Claude Champagne, O.M.I, Rennie Nahanee, Irving Papineau, Bishop Murray Chatlain, Sr. Dorothy Moore, Front row: Rosella Kinoshameg, Sandra Boisvert Missing: Nicole O’Bomsawin, Melody McLeod. Photo by Deborah Gyapong / CCN.Vancouver's Rennie Nahanee hopes people think of the hidden history on Guadalupe's Feast
By Deborah Gyapong
The Canadian Catholic News

OTTAWA (CCN)--As Catholics prepare for the 2011 National Day of Prayer for Aboriginal Peoples Dec. 12, the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council (CCAC) has focused its annual message on a young woman named Rose Prince.

Every year hundreds of people make a pilgrimage to her grave site and some have claimed to have found healing as a result of her intercession, says the CCAC message posted on the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website. The CCAC is an advisory body of the CCCB composed of seven Aboriginal members from across Canada and two bishops.

Born in 1915 to a devout Catholic family at Nak’asdli, a First Nations community near Fort St. James in northern British Columbia, Prince was born with a spine curvature that formed a hump on her back and made it difficult for her to walk or kneel.

She attended the Lejac Residential School and asked to remain there after graduation as a lay staff member, doing various tasks from sewing to secretarial work.

“Rose’s life was marked by cheerfulness and gratitude,” said the CCAC message. “She helped other students with their school work and they sought her ought for guidance.”

“She was known to hum or sing as she worked and she gave away her paintings and intricate crochet and bead work as gifts to the Sisters [of the Child Jesus] and other students on special occasions.”

Prince died of tuberculosis in 1949 at the age of 34 and her quiet, hidden life of prayer and cheerful devotion to God might have been forgotten if, in 1951, her casket had not broken open when workers moved some graves close to the school to a bigger cemetery nearby.

“Those present were able to see Rose’s face in perfect condition, that is to say uncorrupted by the two years in the ground,” says an account at a website dedicated to her. “When witnesses were asked to see, the school priest and Sisters, they said she was ‘transparent,’ that is to say, her body was still fresh, and ‘as if she was sleeping,’ with ‘just a tiny little smile on her face.’

Witnesses agreed “the entire body and the clothing were in a state of perfect preservation.”

Devotion to Rose Prince has grown over the years to include an annual pilgrimage that began in 1990 and attracts hundreds.

As the CCAC raises awareness of little known Aboriginal Canadians who were known for their holiness like Rose Prince, the advisory body met recently in Ottawa at the CCCB Secretariat.

“There are a lot of good things going on in Aboriginal communities,” said CCAC member Rennie Nahanee of the Squamish First Nation, following the meeting. “It’s not all dark.”

As Catholics remember Aboriginal peoples on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Dec. 12, Nahanee hopes they will consider some of the history that does not get into the books and the difficulties First Nations peoples have faced through colonialization, the loss of their traditional hunting and fishing groups and being forced onto reserves.

“Remember who your neighbor is and the story of the Good Samaritan,” he said. “Aboriginal people have contributed a lot to Canada and not just lands, minerals,-- and resources."

The problems on reserves are problems that face many other communities, he said.

Though Nahanee said the Indian Residential School policy to “take the Indian out of the child” had a devastating effect on individuals, families and communities, not everything about the schools was bad. He said lifelong friendships were formed among students, because that was the only family they knew.

“Aboriginal people had very good relationship with the Church prior to residential schools,” he said, noting that priests learned the native languages and some even created dictionaries, which helped preserve them.

Nahanee pointed out for many First Nations “our spiritual values were similar to the Church’s. That’s why the Church was readily accepted.”