Diocese kicks off celebration Indian Island event launches Catholic Church’s milestone

INDIAN ISLAND – Among Bishop Joseph Gerry’s most cherished possessions is an eagle feather given to him long ago by a Penobscot Indian woman. He received the gift from a tribal elder, who told him that to give someone an eagle feather meant the giver valued the life of the recipient more than his or her own.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve told that story and how much it means to me,” Gerry said during a special worship service at St. Ann Roman Catholic Church on Indian Island in Old Town.

Gerry’s visit, which coincided with the Feast of St. Ann, marked the start of what will be a yearlong celebration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. Gerry chose to begin the celebration by returning to the diocese’s roots.

During a Mass on Saturday at St. Ann, Gerry celebrated the role Maine’s American Indians played in the church’s early years in this area. Penobscot Indians were among the first Catholics to live on lands that one day would make up the diocese, which originally fell under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Baltimore then Boston before it was established by Pope Pius IX on July 29, 1853.

The gift of the feather to the then-new bishop was a tangible symbol of the nearly 400-year relationship between the Catholic Church and Maine’s native people.

St. Ann on Indian Island is the oldest continuous site of Catholic worship in New England. The current church building, completed in 1830, is the third-oldest Catholic church in Maine.

Traditional drumming and dress were among the touches that gave Saturday’s services a decidedly native flair. The parish’s choir performed hymns in English, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Mohawk languages.

During the service, Bishop Gerry reflected on the Indians’ role in the early years of the Catholic Church in Maine and about the power of prayer, especially as it pertains to the shrine at Ste. Anne de Beaupre in Quebec, the site of healing and miraculous cures – healing made possible, he said, through prayer.

The 150th anniversary Mass coincided with the Feast of St. Ann, Jesus’ grandmother, whom native Catholics hold in high esteem. The tradition of devotion to St. Ann was brought to Canada by Breton colonists, diocese chancellor Monsignor Mark Caron said Saturday. Some believe the Indians’ devotion stems from their traditional matriarchal society, while others would say it was because of St. Ann’s history of healing.

According to a brief history of the Indian Island parish, the Penobscots are believed to have had their first encounter with a Jesuit in 1604, when French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed up the Penobscot River. Subsequent meetings with priests would have taken place in 1613 on Mount Desert Island and at the trading station at Castine.

The first church on Indian Island was constructed in 1688. The baron of Castine, who married the Penobscot chief’s daughter, is believed to have helped pay for the construction. That church, however, was destroyed in 1723, when the British came upon Indian Island and burned the village, including the church. In 1724, the British burned homes and killed tribal members living at Norridgewock. Father Sebastian Rasle, a Jesuit, lived among the Indians there, was scalped by the British. A Penobscot Indian named One-Armed Nicolar brought the iron cross from the burned Norridgewock church to Indian Island, where it remains today in remembrance of the lives lost in the massacre.

As the British began to move into Maine, the French-Catholic priests fled to Canada, leaving the Indian people without a resident pastor. Mass was said for the tribe whenever a priest could visit the village. The site of the island’s first church was continuously used when a priest was present and Sunday worship services were led by tribal members when priests were not available. The British reported sightings of Penobscots carrying their deceased loved ones to Canada in order to have the rites of the church performed for their dead.

When asked to join the colonists in fighting in the Revolutionary War, the Penobscots requested that a priest be made available to them. Tribe members walked to Baltimore in 1789 to ask the bishop to send them a pastor. They presented the Norridgewock cross and told the bishop they were Catholic. The request was granted and a priest was sent to care for Maine’s Indian tribes.

Father John Chevrus built the second church on Indian Island around 1798. The existing church was built during Father Virgil Barber’s tenure. The Sisters of Mercy arrived on Indian Island in 1878, establishing a school, among other things.