CSJ Community Living Document – Land Acknowledgment
We are on the ancestral homelands of the Dakȟóta. We desire to honor and respect the first people and recognize their caring for our common home. Other sovereign Indigenous nations including the Anishinaabe also have a long history with these sacred lands: past, present, and future. We, both personally and institutionally, continue to have a deepening awareness of our complicity, of the complex history of colonialism, genocide and broken treaties. We seek to understand the troubled acquisition of this land by unjust U.S. Government practices including the stealing of these lands and the forced removal from the birth place of the Dakȟóta without any compensation to the Indigenous communities. We acknowledge the past, current, and future impacts of this history on our relationship with our Indigenous sisters and brothers.
In our commitment to social justice and the “love of dear neighbor without distinction,” we are called to acknowledge and to deepen our understanding of our participation in interlocking systems of oppression. We seek to journey farther together to respond boldly in working toward dismantling these systems.
We, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Consociates [and St. Catherine University], know that these words are inadequate, imperfect and must extend beyond this verbal Acknowledgment. This is only our beginning of a much larger journey of listening, learning, building relationship and advocating for and with Indigenous nations for a more just world for all. Living Document – April 5, 2022.
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