Catholic church hands over Anishinabe Spiritual Centre to Indigenous-led board

The Catholic church is officially handing over the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre near Espanola, which for 45 years has been at the forefront of blending Christian and Indigenous spirituality, to Anishinaabe people.

The centre on the shores of Anderson Lake was established in the early 1980s by the Jesuits of Canada and Bishop Alexander Carter of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie.

On Friday, a ceremony will be held formally passing control of the centre to an Indigenous-led board of trustees.

"I'm excited, so now we won't have that extra layer above us," said board chair Rosella Kinoshameg.

"The future looks brighter, the program will continue. It will be good for the people, it will be good for us."

Kinoshameg has been involved with the centre since the early days and remembers being impressed by Bishop Carter's "vision."

"That was the first time that I ever heard from a bishop to say that he was encouraging the native people to rediscover their roots and to value their own culture," she said. 

"That really touched me."

Kinoshameg attended residential school "and I know what happened here. I know we what we weren't allowed to believe in," but says her parents also taught her "our way of life and our traditional ways."

When she worked as a nurse, she said she approached the daily realities of life and death from both Anishinaabe spiritual traditions and Catholic teachings and did the same when she started going to courses and retreats at Anderson Lake.

"A lot of the people were not fully recognizing the Indigenous part. Because they're still under the belief, 'This is all evil,'" Kinoshameg said. 

"So I started to teach them the way I learned."

She said in recent years the centre has been doing more community outreach, specifically in incorporating Anishinaabe customs into funerals and burials, many of them, Kinoshameg said, young people who died of a drug overdose.

The Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and the Jesuits of Canada will still be involved in the classes and courses offered at the spiritual centre through "sacramental guidance and spiritual oversight."