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Croatian Pastor Blessed in Mississauga First Nation

By: Jon Cada-Dorion - aug12/09

"Blessed Kateri receives honoured guests"

Members from the Holy Cross Croatian Parish visited the Blessed Kateri Church on the Mississauga First Nation reserve Wednesday morning.

Father Marijan Mihokovic, priest of the Holy Cross Parish, located in Hamilton, Ontario was delighted to visit the community and hear locals talk about spiritual beliefs in the Anishnabek teachings.

“I organized to come here five years ago and it was very beautiful and the people were impressed, so they asked me again and again to visit. This time I have a young priest from Croatia to help out and we organized it for this summer. We also brought along three people who presently live in Croatia and they are enjoying it here very much.”

An Elliot Lake couple took part in organizing the trip for the Southern Ontario group. Marija and Berislav Fabek belonged to the Croatian church and helped organize the trip to the Blessed Kateri five years ago. They are now part of the Lady of Fatima church in Elliot Lake. The Fabek’s first found the Blessed Kateri in 2000 on a trip with the Fatima parish that visited all the churches within the Sault Ste. Marie Diocese.

Charles Wamika, a bishop from Uganda was impressed with the community and spoke about the vague knowledge he had of the North American natives.

“We had known about Columbus discovering this continent thinking it was India and the Cowboys and Indians in history books. This vague idea we grew up with is not like that at all. The people here have strong beliefs about who they are and it reminds me of my home. We are told to live one way but we still know who we are.”

Wamika is travelling between Canada and the U.S. as part of an exchange program that helps missionary’s travel to Europe and North America to learn and teach new ideas within the Roman-Catholic faith.

Bev Daybutch, a worker on Mississauga First Nation sang a traditional greetings song for the visiting parish and afterwards said it was a joy sharing our culture with other people.

“I think it’s neat to see people come in to our community and have an interest about how we still fight for our identity and how we like to share our culture with others who are interested.”

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Digging For The Truth

By: Jon Cada-Doiron

"First Nation students get an opportunity to find out how they got their names"

Tucked away in old documents as far back in history as Cartier’s first maps of the great lakes region, history became revealed. Heidi Bohacker, a professor of History at the University of Toronto unraveled and answered long standing questions about clan systems,

read the entire story here..Digging For The Truth.