USA: Canonisation Cause opened for Lakota Chief Black Elk

Nicholas Black Elk, daughter Lucy, wife Anna Brings White, 1910. Wiki - Raymond DeMallie

The US Bishops approved the canonical consultation of canonization for a Lakota Catechist, Nicholas Black Elk, at their annual fall General Assembly in Baltimore yesterday. The vote was sought by Bishop Robert D. Gruss of Rapid City, South Dakota.

Nicholas W Black Elk, Sr, was born into the Oglala Lakota Tribe in 1863 in Wyoming. The fourth generation to be named Black Elk, he was third in succeeding his father and grandfather as a prominent medicine man. In 1885, he learned about St Kateri Tekakwitha and signed the petition supporting the cause of her canonization. In 1904, he met a Jesuit priest who invited him to study Christianity at Holy Rosary Mission near Pine Ridge, SD. On December 6, on the Feast of St Nicholas, he was baptized Nicolas William. In 1907, the Jesuits appointed him a catechist because of his love for Christ, his enthusiasm and his excellent memory for learning scripture and Church teachings.

During the second half of his life, he traveled widely to various reservations, preaching, sharing stories, and teaching the Catholic faith. He is attributed to having 400 Native American people baptized.

A petition with more than 1,600 signatures to begin the cause for canonization was handed into the diocese on March 14, 2016.

Deacon Marlon Leneaugh, Rapid City's diocesan director of Native Ministry, described Black Elk as a revered holy man among the Lakota who bridged the gap between traditional native spirituality and Catholicism.

He told the National Catholic Reporter: "He showed his people that you did not have to choose between the two, you could be both. He did not abandon his native ways when he became a Christian. To him it was together-praying to the one God."

Read the NCR report here: www.ncronline.org/news/people/mass-formally-opens-canonization-cause-chief-black-elk