Jean-Baptiste DuSable and the future
of metropolitan Chicago
Learning Chicago history fifty years ago, I heard of the Potawatomi
Indians, who inhabited what is now Cook and Lake counties for
centuries; but they were considered, unfairly, mostly in the light
of an event we called the Fort Dearborn Massacre. We heard in
Catholic school of the first Europeans to pass the winter here
in 1674-75, Father Jacques Marquette, S.J., and Louis Joliet.
We learned that a century later, in 1772, there was another Catholic
who settled here and married a Potawatomi woman, Kittihawa. His
name was Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable, and he was Haitian. He
sold land to another first settler, John Kinzie.
DuSable came to mind again a year ago, when I was meeting with
Catholic African American men at St. James Church on 29th and
Wabash. African-American Catholics, at least through Haiti and
the Caribbean, bring all of us--no matter our race or culture--back
to our roots here as citizens and Catholics; and we thought it
might be a good idea, at the end of this millennium, to signal
that fact and thank God for the life of grace first made permanently
visible here through the marriage of a Haitian Catholic man and
a Potawatomi woman convert to the faith. The first Catholic mission
church and school in the Chicago area served their family.
On September l2, Holy Name Cathedral will welcome Archbishop Charles
Chaput of Denver, who is both Potawatomi and French, and Bishop
Willy Romelus of Jeremy, Haiti. They will concelebrate Mass with
me and Bishop Perry and other bishops and priests, along with
the Knights and Ladies of St. Peter Claver, here in Chicago for
their annual Claver feast, and representatives of the Native Peoples
and of the Haitian community and many other Catholics of our Archdiocese.
It will be a grand occasion, made possible by the generosity of
many people and the imagination and skillful planning of Sheila
Bourelly, an African-American Catholic and the editor of Deliverance,
a newsletter for the black Catholic community.
Ms. Bourelly has coordinated several events around our celebration
of DuSable: a reception and symposium on August 29 at the DuSable
Museum, East 56th Place, on DuSable as pioneer and peacemaker;
the Mass at the Cathedral on September 12; a benefit “in the Spirit
of Eschikagou” for the children of Haiti on September 17 at the
Chicago Historical Society. These are the events that recall years
long past and create this year’s DuSable Festival.
What of the future?
Liturgies are neither conferences nor seminars. They are events,
celebrations, which draw us into realities which transcend us.
The liturgy brings us, first, into the mystery of Christ’s passion
and resurrection and then, in Christ, into the lives of his friends
of all times and places. Through the liturgy we are quite literally
united with Jean-Baptiste and Kittihawa DuSable, for their faith
is ours and the same grace of Christ transforms all places and
times. DuSable laid the foundation for the Archdiocese of Chicago
in a rude mission Church and school. He was part of a settlement
that quickly drew peoples from all parts of the earth, and he
had a reputation as a trusted peacemaker.
The Archdiocese continues to be a microcosm of the universal Church,
because the Chicago area continues to draw peoples from all parts
of the earth. What we need today, even more than two centuries
ago, are trusted peacemakers. We need men and women who will welcome
racial and ethnic differences and see them not as threats but
as gifts to be shared.
Our Archdiocesan celebration of the New Millennium has focused
on Pope John Paul II’s call to a New Evangelization. Last year
we began to pray for our personal conversion in the parishes;
now we will begin turning our attention to the transformation
of society, which is integral to Catholic evangelizing. This society,
both locally and nationally, continues to be marked by racism
and other forms of hatred, despite many good efforts over the
past thirty years. As we begin to ask what an evangelized metropolitan
Chicago would look like, we can look first at those gathered for
the Eucharist in the Cathedral on September l2. With Christ as
our center, we can look back to DuSable and around at ourselves
and then, with confidence, look to a future where racism of any
sort will be recognized as the sin it is. God bless you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
