The religious congregation to which I belong, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, has had a long relationship with the indigenous peoples of North America. Admittedly, it hasn’t always been without its shortcomings on our side, but it has been a sustained one, constant through more than 150 years. I write this out of the archives of that history.
In the mid-1800s, a group of young Oblates left France to work with the Native peoples of the states of Oregon and Washington. Given the means of travel at the time, particularly the challenge of crossing the entire United States (much of it on horseback), it took them almost a year to get from Marseilles to the Oregon coast. Among their number was a young missionary, Fr Charles Pandosy.
