Report reveals sexual abuse of Native American children in Catholic boarding schools

WASHINGTON

Native American children forcibly separated from their families by the U.S. government and placed in Catholic boarding schools have been raped or sexually abused by Catholic priests and members of religious communities for decades, according to a report released Wednesday.

To prepare its investigative report, The Washington Post interviewed more than two dozen survivors of Indian residential schools who were sexually and physically abused as children and reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, affidavits, lawsuits, diaries of priests and sisters, correspondence between priests and sexual abuse report forms.

In addition, thousands of boarding school documents were examined in the National Archives.

Between 1819 and 1969, tens of thousands of children were sent to more than 500 boarding schools in the United States. Most of these schools were run or funded by the U.S. government. Eighty of these schools were run by the Catholic Church or its religious allies, the report said.

Established under the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the schools had a profound and lasting impact on Native American families, causing significant trauma, loss of culture and language, physical illness, and even death among the children forced to attend these schools.

According to an analysis by The Post and court records, at least 19 Catholic priests, brothers and sisters were accused of sexually abusing 21 Native American children at the St. Paul Mission and Boarding School in Montana, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s.

The investigation found that at least 122 priests, sisters and brothers assigned to 22 boarding schools since the 1890s were later accused of sexually abusing Native American children in their care. Most of these incidents occurred in the 1950s and 1960s and involved more than 1,000 children.

Among the victims interviewed in the report was 64-year-old Clarita Vargas, who was 8 years old when she was forced to live at St. Mary’s Mission, a Catholic-run Indian boarding school in Omak, Washington.

“It has haunted me my whole life,” said Vargas, who was reportedly “groped and groped” by a priest who took her and another girl to his office to watch a made-for-TV movie.

Jay, 70, a member of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes who was identified only by his first name, was sent to the St. Paul Mission and Boarding School in Hays, Montana, at the age of 11.

He said a Jesuit brother raped him in a hut next to a pine grove where priests were cutting down Christmas trees.

“He said if I ever told anyone, I would go to hell,” he added.

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