'Would you go and tear up St. Peter's in Rome?'

[rug]

A view of the Cannon Ball River area in North Dakota in 2011 (Wikimedia Commons/Bryan Boyce)

by Maureen Fiedler | Dec. 6, 2016

"Would you go and tear up St. Peter's in Rome just because you want to put a pipeline through it?" This is a quote from Miles Allard, a Native American elder at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where the protests against a proposed oil pipeline have been growing for months. The essence of that protest is actually religious in nature. The Sioux regard the land where the pipeline would run as "sacred land," deemed so by their ancestors as well as present-day Native Americans. This is not often mentioned in the news.

Allard was interviewed by Abby Holtzman, an assistant producer and Loretto volunteer here at Interfaith Voices on her recent visit to Standing Rock.

The comparison to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is especially striking. Native Americans have long believed in the sacredness of the Earth, and have often designated tracts of land as "sacred." There are no buildings, temples, churches, steeples or stained-glass windows in those sacred spaces — only the Earth itself.

That often strikes outsiders as odd or peculiar. But there is true wisdom here. Native Americans understand at some deep level the sacredness of our planet and the need to preserve it from nefarious uses. That consciousness is part of their gift to us.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/would-you-go-and-tear-st-peters-rome