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NATIVE AMERICAN CHILDREN ENDURED YEARS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AT BOARDING SCHOOLS

‘In the name of God’




FOR DECADES, CATHOLIC PRIESTS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS RAPED OR MOLESTED NATIVE
AMERICAN CHILDREN WHO WERE TAKEN FROM THEIR HOMES BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND
FORCED TO LIVE AT REMOTE BOARDING SCHOOLS, A POST INVESTIGATION FOUND.

By Sari Horwitz, 
Dana Hedgpeth, 
Emmanuel Martinez, 
Scott Higham and 
Salwan Georges
May 29, 2024 at 6:35 a.m.

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Clarita Vargas was 8 when she was forced to live at St. Mary’s Mission, a
Catholic-run Indian boarding school in Omak, Wash., that was created under a
U.S. government policy to strip Native American children of their identities. A
priest took her and other girls to his office to watch a TV movie, then groped
and fondled her as she sat on his lap — the beginning of three years of sexual
abuse, she said.

“It haunted me my entire life,” said Vargas, now 64.



Jay, a 70-year-old member of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes whose
surname is not being used to protect his privacy, was sent to St. Paul Mission
and Boarding School in Hays, Mont. When he was 11, Jay said, a Jesuit brother
raped him in a shack next to the pine grove where the priests cut down Christmas
trees.

“He said if I ever told anybody that I would go to hell,” Jay recalled.



Geraldine Charbonneau Dubourt was one of nine sisters who said they were
sexually or physically abused by priests at an Indian boarding school in Marty,
S.D. She said that she was 16 when a Catholic priest repeatedly raped her in a
church basement and that a doctor and several Catholic sisters later forced her
to undergo an abortion.

“If somebody says you get over the abuse, trust me, you don’t get over it,” said
Dubourt, 75.



A photo taken in about 1905 of female students and several sisters at St. Paul
in Hays, Mont. (Montana Historical Society Library and Archives)


These firsthand accounts and other evidence documented by The Washington Post
reveal the brutality and sexual abuse inflicted upon children who were taken
from their families under a systematic effort by the federal government to
destroy Native American culture, assimilate children into White society and
seize tribal lands.

From 1819 to 1969, tens of thousands of children were sent to more than 500
boarding schools across the country, the majority run or funded by the U.S.
government. Children were stripped of their names, their long hair was cut, and
they were beaten for speaking their languages, leaving deep emotional scars on
Native American families and communities. By 1900, 1 out of 5 Native American
school-age children attended a boarding school. At least 80 of the schools were
operated by the Catholic Church or its religious affiliates.

The Post investigation reveals a portrait of pervasive sexual abuse endured by
Native American children at Catholic-run schools in remote regions of the
Midwest and Pacific Northwest, including Alaska.

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

“A national crime scene” is how Deborah Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes
and the chief executive of the National Native American Boarding School Healing
Coalition, described the network of church-run Indian boarding schools.

“They committed crimes under the cloak,” said Parker, whose grandmother and
other family members were sent to boarding schools. “They did it in the name of
God.”

To investigate, The Post examined the work histories of priests named on lists,
disclosed by Catholic entities, as having faced a “credible claim of sexual
abuse.” Using those lists from dioceses and religious orders, The Post then
identified which abusers worked at Indian boarding schools. Reporters also
reviewed lawsuits, sworn affidavits, oral histories and thousands of boarding
school records, and conducted interviews with former students.

Warren Morin, 60, of the Gros Ventre tribe, honors his grandfather — who as a
child attended St. Paul Mission and Boarding School — at a nearby cemetery in
Hays, Mont. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

The Post’s findings come at a time when the country’s first Native American
cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland — whose own relatives were sent to boarding
schools — is scrutinizing the history of the schools that were operated or
supported by the U.S. Interior Department, the agency she now leads.

As with past government inquiries into the boarding schools, Haaland’s
investigation has not delved into the sexual abuse of Native American children
at church-run schools. A 2022 report by her department blamed the U.S.
government for the boarding school system and cited the “rampant physical,
sexual, and emotional abuse” of the children. But the report did not detail the
schools where sexual abuse happened, the number of children raped or molested,
or the names of priests and other religious members who abused them.

“We care deeply about this issue, but it’s outside the scope of what we sought
to do with the investigative reports,” said an Interior Department official who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak
publicly. The official said the department did not seek records from the
Catholic Church because its investigation was focused solely on the U.S.
government’s role and reviewed only federal government documents.

Experts say The Post’s findings are a window into the widespread sexual abuse at
Indian boarding schools. But the extent of the abuse was probably far worse,
because the lists of accused priests are inconsistent and incomplete, and many
survivors have not come forward. Others are aging and in poor health, or, like
their abusers, have died.

The chances to document their testimonies are disappearing.

“I’ve been waiting 67 years to tell this story,” said Jim LaBelle, 77, an
Iñupiaq from Fairbanks, Alaska, who spent six years at the Wrangell Institute, a
government-run school in the state, 700 miles from his home. He was forbidden to
use his Alaska Native name. From the time he was 8, he was instead identified by
number, a new one assigned each year.

Jim LaBelle, 77, who is Iñupiaq, at his home in Anchorage. He was sent to the
Wrangell Institute when he was 8 along with his 6-year-old brother, Kermit.
“I’ve been waiting 67 years to tell this story,” he said. (Salwan Georges/The
Washington Post)

The abuse of Native American children predated by decades the revelations that
priests at Catholic churches had sexually abused thousands of minors in the
United States and other countries. Those scandals of the early 2000s gave Native
Americans the courage to come forward with their own stories of abuse and seek
accountability through lawsuits.

“It showed that people could stand up against a powerful entity like the church
and that people could be held accountable,” said Vito de la Cruz, a Native
American and Chicano lawyer who has represented boarding school survivors.

An attempt to sue the federal government failed, but some survivors of sexual
abuse have successfully sued Catholic dioceses and religious orders and received
settlements.

Unlike children abused by priests at churches in Boston and other big cities
while they were living at home, Native American children were put into the care
of alleged abusers at remote boarding schools, sometimes hundreds of miles from
home.

Chart showing the appointments over time of priests credibly accused of sexual
assault at 18 schools.

At some boarding schools, generations of Native American children were
continuously under the care of Catholic priests, brothers or sisters who were
later accused of sexual abuse.

The Post analysis of records disclosed by Catholic dioceses and religious orders
revealed 122 individuals who were accused of sexual abuse and had worked at
Indian boarding schools. Each rectangle represents one assignment.

One or more individuals accused of abuse were consistently assigned to St.
Ignatius over 66 years.

NUMBER OF CONCURRENT ASSIGNMENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

St. Ignatius Mission and School (Mont.)*

St. Paul Mission and Boarding School (Mont.) **

St. Francis Indian Mission School (S.D.)

St. Mary Mission School - Andreafsky (Alaska)

St. Mary's Mission School (Wash.)

Holy Cross Boarding School (Alaska)

St. Labre Indian Mission Boarding School (Mont.) **

St. Xavier Mission School (Mont.) **

St. Andrew's Industrial Boarding (Ore.)

St. Mary Mission and School (Kan.)

St. Regis Seminary (Mo.)

Red Cloud Indian School (S.D.)

Copper Valley Boarding School (Alaska)

St. Catherine Indian School (N.M.)

St. Charles Mission School (Mont.)

St. Stephen’s Mission Industrial School (Wyo.)

St. Joseph’s Mission School (Idaho)

Holy Family Mission and School (Mont.)

*20 sisters accused of abusing children worked at St. Ignatius between 1940 and
1975, records show. They are not included because records do not show exact
dates of assignments or abuse.

**Includes two brothers and two sisters at St. Paul, one brother at St. Labre
and one brother at St. Xavier. All were accused of abuse during specific years,
but full assignment dates are unknown.

Note: Others accused of abuse worked at four additional schools. Those schools
are not included because records do not list dates of their assignments or when
the abuse occurred.

Sources: “Credibly accused” lists from dioceses and Jesuit provinces,
ProPublica’s “credibly accused” dataset, and lawsuits.

At some boarding schools, generations of Native American children were
continuously under the care of Catholic priests, brothers or sisters who were
later accused of sexual abuse.

The Post analysis of records disclosed by Catholic dioceses and religious orders
revealed 122 individuals who were accused of sexual abuse and had worked at
Indian boarding schools. Each rectangle represents one assignment.

NUMBER OF CONCURRENT ASSIGNMENTS

One or more individuals accused of abuse were consistently assigned to St.
Ignatius over 66 years.

2

3

6

1

4

5

1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

St. Ignatius Mission and School (Mont.)*

St. Paul Mission and Boarding School (Mont.) **

St. Francis Indian Mission School (S.D.)

St. Mary Mission School - Andreafsky (Alaska)

St. Mary's Mission School (Wash.)

Holy Cross Boarding School (Alaska)

St. Labre Indian Mission Boarding School (Mont.) **

St. Xavier Mission School (Mont.) **

St. Andrew's Industrial Boarding (Ore.)

St. Mary Mission and School (Kan.)

St. Regis Seminary (Mo.)

Red Cloud Indian School (S.D.)

Copper Valley Boarding School (Alaska)

St. Catherine Indian School (N.M.)

St. Charles Mission School (Mont.)

St. Stephen’s Mission Industrial School (Wyo.)

St. Joseph’s Mission School (Idaho)

Holy Family Mission and School (Mont.)

*20 sisters accused of abusing children worked at St. Ignatius between 1940 and
1975, records show. They are not included because records do not show exact
dates of assignments or abuse.

**Includes two brothers and two sisters at St. Paul, one brother at St. Labre
and one brother at St. Xavier. All were accused of abuse during specific years,
but full assignment dates are unknown.

Note: Others accused of abuse worked at four additional schools. Those schools
are not included because records do not list dates of their assignments or when
the abuse occurred.

Sources: “Credibly accused” lists from dioceses and Jesuit provinces,
ProPublica’s “credibly accused” dataset, and lawsuits.

At some boarding schools, generations of Native American children were
continuously under the care of Catholic priests, brothers or sisters who were
later accused of sexual abuse.

The Post analysis of records disclosed by Catholic dioceses and religious orders
revealed 122 individuals who were accused of sexual abuse and had worked at
Indian boarding schools. Each rectangle represents one assignment.

NUMBER OF CONCURRENT ASSIGNMENTS

2

3

1

4

5

6

1900

2000

’25

’50

’75

St. Ignatius Mission and School (Mont.)*

St. Paul Mission and Boarding School (Mont.) **

St. Francis Indian Mission School (S.D.)

St. Mary Mission School - Andreafsky (Alaska)

St. Mary's Mission School (Wash.)

Holy Cross Boarding School (Alaska)

St. Labre Indian Mission Boarding School (Mont.) **

St. Xavier Mission School (Mont.) **

St. Andrew's Industrial Boarding (Ore.)

St. Mary Mission and School (Kan.)

St. Regis Seminary (Mo.)

Red Cloud Indian School (S.D.)

Copper Valley Boarding School (Alaska)

St. Catherine Indian School (N.M.)

St. Charles Mission School (Mont.)

St. Stephen’s Mission Industrial School (Wyo.)

St. Joseph’s Mission School (Idaho)

Holy Family Mission and School (Mont.)

*20 sisters accused of abusing children worked at St. Ignatius between 1940 and
1975, records show. They are not included because records do not show exact
dates of assignments or abuse.

**Includes two brothers and two sisters at St. Paul, one brother at St. Labre
and one brother at St. Xavier. All were accused of abuse during specific years,
but full assignment dates are unknown.

Note: Others accused of abuse worked at four additional schools. Those schools
are not included because records do not list dates of their assignments or when
the abuse occurred.

Sources: “Credibly accused” lists from dioceses and Jesuit provinces,
ProPublica’s “credibly accused” dataset, and lawsuits.

Eighteen of the 22 schools examined by The Post employed at least one credibly
accused priest, sister or brother for 91 consecutive years. At these schools,
successive generations of students continuously lived among predators.

“They can scream for help, but no one’s going to hear them or believe them. It’s
a perpetrator’s wonderland,” said Patrick J. Wall, a former Catholic priest who
once worked for the church as a self-described “fixer” settling child sexual
abuse cases. He has since worked with lawyers representing Native American
boarding school survivors.

The U.S. government’s efforts to address its legacy of boarding schools lag far
behind those of Canada, where survivors were paid billions in compensation and a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 declared the schools a form of
“cultural genocide.”

Pope Francis traveled to Canada in 2022 to apologize for the church’s role in
the “cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of
that time.” But the pope has remained silent about the abuse at Catholic-run
Indian boarding schools in the United States, which had received little scrutiny
until the Interior Department’s report.

Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, known
as the apostolic nuncio, did not respond to an email or call for comment.

The church has addressed abuse by priests in U.S. parishes, but has said little
about the molestation of children in Indian boarding schools. And although the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has grappled in recent years with the legacy
of the church-run schools, it has not issued a formal apology.

(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
“The church wounded my spirit, took away my soul and robbed me of my childhood.”
Clarita VargasBoarding school survivor
Boarding school survivor
(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)



Asked by The Post if the group was considering one, spokesperson Chieko Noguchi
said it is “committed to fostering dialogue and engaging in other efforts to
reconcile involvement in the boarding school period in the United States.”

“The Catholic Church recognizes and acknowledges that the history that is
brought to light regarding the boarding school period of American history may
cause deep sorrow in the Native and Indigenous communities, but we also
prayerfully hope it may bring real and honest dialogue and lead towards a path
of healing and reconciliation with the impacted communities,” Noguchi said.

The Rev. Mike Carson, assistant director for the subcommittee on Native American
affairs with the bishops conference, addressed the church’s role in boarding
schools last year in a webinar.

“Once abuse surfaced, the schools need[ed] to be closed and investigated. That
did not happen for the most part,” Carson said. “Once the federal government
required only English to be taught in the Catholic boarding schools, the answer
should be no, because it violates our faith and should be a line that should not
be crossed.”

Carson acknowledged the sexual and physical abuse of children in the
Catholic-run schools and called for more scrutiny of what occurred, but also
noted a likely dearth of records.

The Post reached out to Carson, who referred inquiries to the bishops
conference.

A group of Chiricahua Apache children as they arrived at the Carlisle Indian
Industrial School in Pennsylvania from Fort Marion, Fla., in November 1886.
(John Nicholas Choate/Courtesy of the Cumberland County Historical Society,
Carlisle, Pa.) Chiricahua Apache children four months after their arrival at the
Carlisle school. The photo was taken in about March 1887. (Courtesy of the
Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, Pa.)

The Interior Department’s report did not explore the role of the Catholic Church
in the schools, except to say the U.S. government paid the church and other
religious institutions to run many of the schools.

“I don’t look at it as we’re out to criticize the Catholic Church as much as
bring this period of history into the consciousness of the American people,”
Haaland told The Post in an interview. “It happened to Native Americans, but the
history belongs to everyone who’s an American.”

Boarding school survivors have praised Haaland’s efforts, but say they still
want apologies from the president and the pope.


HOW WE REPORTED THIS SERIES

Reporters Sari Horwitz, Dana Hedgpeth and Scott Higham and photojournalist
Salwan Georges spent a year traveling to eight states. They spent time on
reservations and interviewed more than two dozen Indian boarding school
survivors who were sexually and physically abused as children.

Reporters attended one of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s “The Road to Healing”
events on the Tulalip Tribes’ reservation in Washington state, where they met
with and listened to survivors. Reporters also visited the American Indian
Records Repository, located about 100 feet underground in limestone caves in
Lenexa, Kan.

Reporters reviewed oral histories and read thousands of boarding school
documents in National Archives files.

They also reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, sworn depositions,
lawsuits, diaries of priests and sisters, correspondence between priests, and
sexual abuse claim forms.

Investigative data reporter Emmanuel Martinez collected lists of Catholic
priests who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse and conducted analysis to
determine who had worked at Indian boarding schools.

Our investigation into the sexual abuse of children in America’s network of
Indian boarding schools found that:

 * At least 122 priests, sisters and brothers assigned to 22 Indian boarding
   schools since 1893 were later accused of sexually abusing Native American
   children under their care.
 * Eighteen of these schools employed at least one credibly accused priest,
   sister or brother for 91 consecutive years
 * The documented abuse involved more than 1,000 children and mostly occurred in
   the 1950s and 1960s.

PreviousNext

Two years ago, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the oldest and
largest organization of Native Americans and Alaska Natives, asked for an
apology from the pope — and for the church to disclose internal records on
abusers.

“The Catholic Church holds important records about Federal Indian boarding
schools that can help bring the truth to light. We cannot hold abusers
accountable, seek redress for harm, or reconcile with the Church, government
institutions, and, in some cases, our own communities and families, until we
know the full, unadulterated truth — truth the Catholic Church is actively
withholding,” wrote Fawn Sharp, a citizen of the Quinault Nation and the NCAI’s
president at the time.

In March, Parker, of the boarding school healing coalition, met at the White
House with Tom Perez, a senior adviser and assistant to President Biden, and
asked for a presidential apology for the widespread mistreatment and abuse that
Native American children suffered at boarding schools.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Advocates have not pushed for reparations from the U.S. government. Parker said
doing so now is a “non-starter” because they first want Congress to create a
truth and healing commission to uncover the horrors of the schools and the
country’s assimilation policy.

“Unfortunately, many, many leaders in this country don’t even know what a U.S.
Indian boarding school was,” Parker said. “And that’s the first step.”


ST. MARY’S MISSION

COLVILLE RESERVATION, WASH.

The St. Mary’s Mission church in Omak, Wash., on the Colville Reservation.
(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)


‘Movie nights’

Near the cliffs overlooking the Okanogan River, not far from a sprawling apple
orchard in north-central Washington, the Catholic Church established St. Mary’s
Mission School in 1886.

St. Mary’s, on the Colville Reservation, was created by federal policy that
tasked people of “good moral character” with introducing Native American
children to the “habits and arts of civilization” under the Civilization Fund
Act of 1819. For Catholic missionaries and other religious groups, the schools
were an opportunity to profit from contracts with the federal government and
transform children the church saw as heathens into God-fearing disciples of
Christianity.

Generations of children attended St. Mary’s before it was turned over to local
tribes in 1973. Decades later, one former student’s stories of predatory
behavior by a priest set off an avalanche of similar claims about priests at St.
Mary’s — and at many other schools.

The account of Katherine Mendez, who was sent to the school in 1966, didn’t
become public until 2007, when her nephew, Ken Bear Chief, a paralegal, told his
boss that his Aunt Kathy had been molested as a child at St. Mary’s.

Blaine Tamaki, a trial lawyer in Washington state who knew little about Indian
boarding schools, interviewed Mendez, then in her early 50s. Mendez, who was
from the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, told him that shortly after she arrived at the
school at age 11, one of the senior Jesuit priests — John J. Morse — began to
prey upon her.

Mendez said Morse often ordered her to his office, sometimes to be disciplined.
She said he insisted she sit on his lap, spanked her bare bottom and penetrated
her with his fingers. He told her not to say a word about it if she ever wanted
to go home again and see her mother, she said.

Mendez thought she was the only one. She wasn’t.

The abuse of children at St. Mary’s spanned more than two decades: Starting in
1948 and for 26 consecutive years, priests or brothers molested children at the
school, according to The Post’s analysis. This was the longest uninterrupted
stretch of abuse documented at any of the 22 schools. It is unclear whether
church officials were aware of the abuse at St. Mary’s at the time.

Other survivors began to share their stories with Bear Chief — who was from the
Nez Perce, Nooksack and Gros Ventre tribes — and the lawyers. One of those
survivors was Clarita Vargas. She, too, had kept her secret about Morse for
decades.

“The church wounded my spirit, took away my soul and robbed me of my childhood,”
said Vargas, of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in
Washington. “It was the federal government that promoted the boarding school
policy and the church was its arm. I blame them both.”

Clarita Vargas, 64, a former student at St. Mary’s Mission School, looks through
old books as she walks through a classroom, vandalized after the school's
closure. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Vargas said Morse began to abuse her at St. Mary’s Mission in 1968. He told her
that if she refused, she would not go to heaven. Sometimes, she said, Morse
locked her in a rat-infested cellar.

Morse invited her and several girls to his office most Sunday nights, she said.
He gave them hot cocoa, chocolate chip cookies or chocolate bars, and let them
watch television. He would lean back in his recliner and place the girls one at
a time on his lap, rubbing their backs until he ejaculated, Vargas said.

Tamaki and his lawyers heard repeatedly from other survivors about the “movie
nights” that Morse hosted in his office. At Christmas, he gave the children
candy canes. “They related the same exact story,” he said.

Some of the survivors said that as children they had tried to tell adults but
were rebuffed or not believed. “It was almost like you were accusing God of
abusing you if you reported it, because these priests were held up in such high
esteem by everyone, second only to God,” said Bryan Smith, Tamaki’s law partner.

Tamaki’s investigation gathered evidence that Morse had molested 60 boys and
girls, ages 5 to 15. The lawyers also identified about a dozen more priests at
St. Mary’s who abused children from the 1940s into the 1970s.

The case grew to include about 500 former students at a dozen schools in remote
Alaskan villages and on Northwest tribal lands in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and
Montana. The 500 survivors sued the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, formerly
known as the Northwest Jesuits.

“There was a pattern and practice at these schools that were basically
unsupervised, isolated outposts,” Tamaki said.

(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

A statue outside the church at St. Mary's Mission. A vandalized building at St.
Mary's Mission School. Buildings at St. Mary’s.

The Northwest Jesuits initially denied the allegations. In a 2007 deposition,
Morse denied sexually abusing children.

“You’re aware that women now say they feel they were sexually molested by you by
sitting on your lap?” a lawyer asked Morse.

“Yeah, and that did not happen,” Morse replied. “There was no molesting while
they were sitting there.” Morse died in Spokane in 2015 at age 85.

In February 2009, the Northwest Jesuits filed for bankruptcy. The legal move
stopped depositions and some disclosure of church records about individual
priests, and prevented a trial, a tactic experts said the church has used many
times.

The Jesuits agreed to pay $166 million in 2011 to about 500 survivors as part of
a bankruptcy settlement. It is the fourth-largest sexual abuse settlement by
Catholic entities to date, according to Terence McKiernan, founder of
BishopAccountability.org, a watchdog group that tracks sexual abuse by members
of the Catholic Church. Survivors received on average $332,000 each, depending
on the severity of abuse, said their lawyers.

As part of the settlement, the Jesuits agreed to make public a list of priests
who had been accused of sexually assaulting children.

Two researchers, Jack Downey of the University of Rochester and Kathleen
Holscher of the University of New Mexico, later used that list and other Jesuit
lists to map the priests’ assignments. They found 47 priests accused of abuse
who had been assigned to Catholic missions in Native American communities. The
Post’s investigation, which reviewed their data and other records, identified
the boarding schools where those priests worked and found 75 additional abusers.

(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
“If something like that happened to them, they’d take it to the grave.”
Warren MorinHolding a photo of his grandfather and other relatives attending St.
Paul Mission and Boarding School in Montana
Holding a photo of his grandfather and other relatives attending St. Paul
Mission and Boarding School in Montana
(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)



The settlement also required the Jesuits to issue written apologies to the
survivors.

“On behalf of the Oregon Province, I want to express our most sincere sorrow for
the pain and hurt caused by the actions of a few men who did not live up to
their vows,” the Very Rev. Patrick Lee, the senior official of the Oregon
Province, wrote of the 64 credibly accused men on the list. “We will continue to
pray for all those who are hurting and hope that today’s announcement brings all
involved one-step closer to the lasting healing they so richly deserve.”

For many of the survivors, it wasn’t about the money. “It was the acknowledgment
they were wronged,” said de la Cruz, the lawyer who represented many of the
survivors and is Yaqui. “Finally somebody said, ‘Yes, you’re right. The things
that you buried deep inside your psyche and your soul were more our fault.’”

After the settlement, Mendez spoke to reporters.

“When I came forward and saw that others did too, it was as if the blanket that
had hidden our secret was pulled off and we could move into the light again,”
she said. Mendez died last year.

Vargas now lives about 40 minutes from her old boarding school. For a long time,
she blocked out the abuse. But she had difficulty trusting anyone and found it
hard to build relationships. As an adult, she never wanted to eat chocolate
because that is what the abusive priest used to give the children.

When Vargas eventually told her story to one of the lawyers, she said she felt
embarrassed and guilty.

“I shouldn’t have felt ashamed by it, but I was,” Vargas told The Post.


ST. PAUL MISSION AND BOARDING SCHOOL

FORT BELKNAP INDIAN RESERVATION, MONT.

The St. Paul Mission church and former school grounds in Hays, Mont., on the
Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)


‘We were little kids’

The allegations of sexual abuse that started with Mendez in Omak led lawyers to
discover long-hidden abuse at another school, St. Paul Mission and Boarding
School, on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, 40 miles from the Canadian
border in Hays, Mont.

“It was a dumping ground for predatory priests,” said de la Cruz.

St. Paul, surrounded by grassy plains at the foot of the Little Rocky Mountains,
was established in 1889 and was among the first schools funded by the federal
government. Both the Jesuits and the Ursuline Sisters, a Catholic order of
women, worked there. St. Paul was troubled from the early days, according to
descendants of survivors and a collection of about 10,000 pages of letters,
diaries, memos, government reports and oral histories reviewed by The Post.
Conditions at the overcrowded school were deplorable: poor plumbing, little
heat, and horsemeat for food. Abuse was rampant.

The stories of the abuse that children endured at St. Paul and other schools
were often passed down orally in Native American families.

George Chandler, a Gros Ventre man born in 1922, said in an oral history about
his time as a student at St. Paul that “they would stuff flashlight batteries”
in the children’s mouths to punish them. “They would jam it there and hit them
like that and make their mouth bleed,” Chandler recounted. “If you cried, they
would hit you all the harder. If one didn’t hurt you enough, they would stuff
two in there.”

Warren Morin, 60, a member of the Gros Ventre tribe, told The Post that his
grandfather told him harrowing stories about St. Paul and said he and the other
boys and girls there “lived in hell.” But Morin said his grandfather never said
anything to him about sexual abuse.

“If something like that happened to them, they’d take it to the grave,” Morin
said.

(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

A window inside the church at St. Paul. Messages spray-painted on trash bins at
St. Paul. A broken crucifix at the cemetery near the former St. Paul boarding
school.

Survivors of sexual abuse at St. Paul began to share their painful stories as
lawyers came to their reservation to investigate.

One of the survivors, the 70-year-old man named Jay, recounted in an interview
with The Post how two priests, a brother and a sister sexually abused him at St.
Paul. He was 6 when the abuse began in 1959, and it continued until he was 12.

Jay said Sister Sigfrieda Hettinger would tell him to stand before a statue of
the Virgin Mary. She would order him to take down his pants and then would
perform oral sex. He said she repeated the act with other children.

“We were little kids,” said Jay, a tall, slender man with closely cropped dark
hair who still finds it hard to talk about what happened to him so many years
ago.

“We didn’t know what to think,” he said. “She would touch us all over and put
our face to her breasts. Before she would do these things, she’d make a sign of
the cross.”

Jay, 70, a survivor of sexual abuse at St. Paul Mission and Boarding School in
Hays, Mont. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Hettinger, who worked at St. Paul from 1958 to 1966, denied in a 2015 deposition
that she or anyone else at the school sexually abused children.

“I loved them all,” Hettinger said. “I never hurt them at all. I never touched
them at all.”

“During the entire period of time, did you ever observe any child being sexually
abused by anyone?” a lawyer asked her.

“No, no,” she said.

She died the next year at age 87 in Milwaukee.

At least 19 priests, brothers and sisters were accused of sexually abusing 21
Native American children at St. Paul, primarily in the 1950s and 1960s,
according to The Post’s analysis and court records.

One of the Jesuit priests who were accused of preying on children at St. Paul
was the Rev. Edmund J. Robinson. From the 1950s through the early 1980s, church
officials had moved him from boarding school to boarding school, according to
church and court records, lawsuits and an article in the Great Falls Tribune.

Map showing the appointments of Father Edmund Robinson at Native American
boarding schools and other schools or churches.

The work history of Edmund J. Robinson

From 1956 to 1993, Catholic officials relocated Robinson a dozen times,
including repeated assignments at two Indian boarding schools.

Indian boarding school

Other school or church

11

5

2

10

1

3

6

WASH.

4

7

8

12

MONT.

9

ORE.

IDAHO

Robinson was first appointed to St. Paul Mission after ordination. He was
accused of sexually abusing multiple children at St. Paul in a 2011 lawsuit.

1956–58 St. Paul Mission (Hays, Mont.)

1

1958–59

Manresa Hall

(Port Townsend, Wash.)

2

1959–62 St. Paul Mission (Hays, Mont.)

3

1962–64 St. Ignatius Mission (St. Ignatius, Mont.)

4

1964–66 St. Mary’s Mission (Omak, Wash.)

5

1966–68 St. Paul Mission (Hays, Mont.)

6

1962–64 St. Ignatius Mission (St. Ignatius, Mont.)

7

1981–85 Sacred Heart Mission (De Smet, Idaho)

8

1985–86 St. Luke’s Church (Woodburn, Ore.)

9

1986–87 St. Jude’s Church (Havre, Mont.)

10

1987–89 St. Thomas’ Church (Harlem, Mont.)

11

1989–93 St. Stanislaus’ Church (Lewiston, Idaho)

12

Note: According to church records, Robinson stayed at Servants of the Paraclete,
a treatment center in Jemez Springs, N.M., in 1984 and 1985. The exact timing of
his stay is unknown. In 1993, Robinson retired in Spokane, Wash. He died in
2014.

Source: Jesuits West list of “Credible Claims of Sexual Abuse of a Minor or
Vulnerable Adult.”

The work history of Edmund J. Robinson

From 1956 to 1993, Catholic officials relocated Robinson a dozen times,
including repeated assignments at two Indian boarding schools.

Indian boarding school

Other school or church

1987–89

St. Thomas’ Church

Harlem

1964-66

1986–87

1958–59

St. Mary’s Mission

St. Jude’s Church

Manresa Hall

Omak

Havre

Port Townsend

5

2

10

11

1

3

6

WASHINGTON

MONTANA

1956–58

4

7

8

1959–62

1985–86

1962–64

1966–68

1968–81

St. Luke’s Church

12

St. Paul Mission

St. Ignatius Mission

Woodburn

1989–93

Hays

St. Ignatius

9

St. Stanislaus’ Church

Lewiston

IDAHO

OREGON

1981–85

Robinson was first appointed to St. Paul Mission after ordination. He was
accused of sexually abusing multiple children at St. Paul in a 2011 lawsuit.

Sacred Heart Mission

De Smet

Note: According to church records, Robinson stayed at Servants of the Paraclete,
a treatment center in Jemez Springs, N.M., in 1984 and 1985. The exact timing of
his stay is unknown. In 1993, Robinson retired in Spokane, Wash. He died in
2014.

Source: Jesuits West list of “Credible Claims of Sexual Abuse of a Minor or
Vulnerable Adult.”

That was the church’s pattern for many predatory priests, according to former
church insiders and attorneys for the survivors. “It was remove, hide, shuffle,”
said one of those lawyers, Dan Fasy.

Robinson, known as “Father Eddy,” started his career in the mid-1950s at St.
Paul. Shortly after he arrived, he allegedly sexually abused a child. He then
went to a Jesuit priests’ training college but returned to St. Paul, where he
was later accused of sexually assaulting two more children. He was then moved to
another boarding school, St. Ignatius Mission — 400 miles away in Montana —
where he allegedly sexually abused a 5-year-old.

Robinson had been replaced at St. Paul by the Rev. Arnold Custer — who was also
later accused of sexually abusing a child, according to court documents, local
media reports, and watchdog groups that monitor predatory priests. Custer has
since died.

In 1984, letters between church authorities showed that Robinson was being
treated at the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, N.M., a facility for
troubled priests, according to church and court records.

The Rev. Edmund J. Robinson is seen in a St. Paul yearbook teaching an English 1
class. Warren Morin, who lives on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and whose
grandfather attended the school, has collected its yearbooks. (Salwan
Georges/The Washington Post)

In New Mexico, Robinson said that he realized “something was wrong within him
and that he must do something about it,” according to a November 1984 mental
health evaluation obtained by The Post. One of the men involved in Robinson’s
“spiritual direction” at Servants of the Paraclete was later accused of sexually
abusing multiple children, records show. The center discharged Robinson the next
year and he served at several other Catholic parishes until the early 1990s.

During his time as a priest, Robinson was accused of sexually abusing nine boys
and girls at several boarding schools, records show. Robinson spent more than
two decades working at Indian boarding schools, and served at St. Paul Mission
on three separate occasions.

In 2018, the Jesuits West Province included Robinson’s name on a publicly
released list of credibly accused priests.

Robinson had died in 2014 after spending the last years of his life at the Regis
Community in Spokane, Wash. — like other Jesuits accused of sexually assaulting
minors, according to the Jesuits West list of credibly accused priests, court
documents, interviews with lawyers and local media reports.

In 2021, the Jesuit Conference released a statement about Indian boarding
schools, saying, “We regret our participation in the separation of families and
the suppression of Native languages, cultures and sacred ways of life.” Two
years later, Jesuits West launched a website to address the role of the Jesuits
in operating Indian boarding schools.


ST. PAUL’S AND ST. FRANCIS INDIAN MISSION SCHOOLS

YANKTON SIOUX RESERVATION AND ROSEBUD RESERVATION IN S.D.

St. Therese Hall, which was part of the former St. Paul’s Indian Mission School
in Marty, S.D. (Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters)


‘We are not going away’

One by one, starting in the 1950s, Geraldine Charbonneau Dubourt and her eight
sisters from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa were sent more than 400 miles
away from their North Dakota home to St. Paul’s Indian Mission School in Marty,
S.D., on the Yankton Sioux Reservation.

Dubourt, who attended St. Paul’s from 1955 to 1967, said that starting when she
was 6, a priest fondled her on the playground, according to an affidavit. When
she was a teenager, a different priest repeatedly raped her, she said. One of
Dubourt’s sisters said that when she was 9, she was raped by a priest on a
kitchen table. A third sister said that a priest “would take me down to the
basement and have me perform oral sex on him.” He also showed her an area where
coffins were stored. “One time he put me inside a coffin and I thought I would
die,” she said in an affidavit.

In 2008, the nine siblings sued 12 priests, sisters and school workers over
alleged abuse, in a case that became known as “The Nine Little Girls” and was
covered by the Indian Country press, including by Native News Online. They also
sued the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls and three religious groups.

The Sioux Falls Diocese and the religious organizations denied wrongdoing and
said they had no responsibility for the priests, sisters and school employees,
who have all since died. The diocese did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2010, shortly before the case was set to go to trial, the South Dakota
legislature passed a law that prohibits victims of alleged sexual abuse who are
40 or older from suing institutions.

While many states have extended deadlines for filing sexual abuse lawsuits,
South Dakota — which had 35 Indian boarding schools — is one state that took
action to make it nearly impossible for aging survivors to seek justice,
according to Marci A. Hamilton, an expert on child sex abuse statutes of
limitation and the founder and CEO of Child USA, a nonprofit group working to
end child abuse.

“What’s unbelievable is that since 2002, we’ve had 293 laws passed in the United
States that extend the statute of limitations” for sexual abuse victims,
Hamilton said. But “this law rolls it back rather than making it more generous.”

Steve Smith, a South Dakota lawyer who represented a Catholic congregation that
ran an Indian boarding school in the state, wrote the legislation that changed
the statute of limitations. The boarding school that his client ran had faced
numerous lawsuits filed by former students who said they were sexually abused
there. Protecting the congregation from further litigation was a motivating
factor, Smith told The Post.

A series of court rulings eventually led to the dismissal of the suit brought by
the Charbonneau sisters, along with lawsuits by more than 100 other survivors.

(Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters)
“If somebody says you get over the abuse, trust me, you don’t get over it.”
Geraldine Charbonneau DubourtBoarding school survivor
Boarding school survivor
(Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters)



“The passage of the legislation was the catalyst for the sisters’ case and
numerous other cases being shut down statewide,” said Gregory A. Yates, the
lawyer who represented the South Dakota survivors. “The effect was to
revictimize these survivors of childhood sexual abuse.”

Smith said in an interview that he “absolutely” believes that the nine sisters
were molested at St. Paul’s.

“There is no doubt in my mind in just listening to them that they are sincere in
their story,” Smith said. But he said that individual abusers should be held
responsible — not churches or religious institutions.

Dubourt, with long gray hair, is now in poor health. She is still passionate
about wanting accountability from the church and the state for what happened to
her as a child. For nearly a decade, she and her sisters dressed in long Native
American ribbon skirts and protested at the South Dakota Capitol, in Pierre, to
try to get the law changed.

“If we die, we’ll go away,” Dubourt told The Post. “Other than that, we are not
going away.” Three of her sisters have died.

Dubourt said she and her sisters still carry the abuse they suffered as children
at St. Paul’s Indian Mission School.

“You just set it on the back burner for a minute so you can survive,” she said.

South Dakota’s law would have prevented the aging survivors of sexual abuse at
another school, St. Francis Indian Mission School, from suing the church. But
lawyers found “smoking gun” letters in church files that showed that church
officials had “covered up” evidence of abuse, Yates said. The letters allowed
the lawyers to successfully argue under a different statute that a Catholic
order had fraudulently concealed evidence of sexual abuse, he said.

The lawyers discovered the letters in 2011 after two women who had attended St.
Francis, on the Rosebud Reservation, said they were abused, Yates said. The
letters revealed that priests knew that a colleague, Brother Francis Chapman,
known as “Chappy,” was molesting children.

“Chappy had his problems — drinking to excess, fooling around with little girls
— he had them down the basement of our building in the dark, where we found a
pair of panties torn,” a priest named Richard T. Jones wrote to a fellow cleric
in 1968.

Jones, who has since died, wrote that a person working at the mission didn’t
want Chapman around children, but made no mention of action being taken.

Three years later, the Rev. Bernard D. Fagan, a superior at the St. Francis
school, wrote to a church official that Chapman was involved in another incident
“similar to those of the past.” Fagan said they decided to “counsel with him
rather strongly in the hope that future incidents would be avoided.”

Fagan himself later admitted in a 1994 letter to a Diocese of Rapid City
official that he sexually abused 12 Native American girls.

In 2015, the two former St. Francis students who sued received confidential
settlements for abuse they suffered from Chapman, Yates said.

Both Chapman and Fagan have since died. In 2019, both were identified by the
Rapid City Diocese as priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

“Let us all pray for reparation for the sins and failings of those who abused
their power and authority which led to the injury of others, especially our
children,” the Most Rev. Robert D. Gruss, then the bishop of Rapid City, wrote
in disclosing their names.

Chapman was one of 10 alleged abusers at the school, The Post’s analysis shows.
Starting in 1942 with his employment and for the next 61 years, the school
continuously employed at least one priest or brother accused of sexually
assaulting or raping children.


THE ROAD TO HEALING

A horse stands atop a hill near a cemetery in Hays, Mont., on the Fort Belknap
Indian Reservation. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)


‘They were stolen’

On a recent afternoon at the Interior Department’s headquarters, Secretary
Haaland pointed to framed photos of her parents and grandparents in her office,
which is decorated with Native American paintings, pottery and blankets.

Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe of New Mexico and a Catholic,
said that when her grandmother was little, she and other children were rounded
up by a priest in their village and put on a train to a boarding school in Santa
Fe, about 100 miles from her home. Her great-grandfather was sent more than
1,000 miles to one of the nation’s first federal boarding schools, in Carlisle,
Pa., where the founder’s philosophy was: “Kill the Indian in him, and save the
man.”

“They were stolen,” she said.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, seen in her office in D.C., is investigating the
history of Indian boarding schools. “It happened to Native Americans, but the
history belongs to everyone who’s an American,” she said. (Salwan Georges/The
Washington Post)

When Haaland was still a member of Congress in 2020, she introduced legislation
to create the first commission in U.S. history to investigate and document
America’s Indian boarding schools.

The legislation was reintroduced last year in the Senate and this year in the
House — but has not reached the floor for a vote in either chamber. The
commission would have subpoena power, which could be used to compel the Catholic
Church and other religious institutions that ran the schools to disclose their
internal documents about boarding schools, experts said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has not taken a position on the
legislation, said Noguchi, the group’s spokesperson.

After the 2021 discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian
Residential School in Canada, Haaland, by this time Biden’s interior secretary,
launched her investigation into U.S. Indian boarding schools.

Canada was a role model for such an effort, advocates said.

The Canadian government had created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and
the prime minister issued a formal apology in 2008 after settling a massive
class-action suit brought by school survivors. Seven years later, the commission
reported that about half of the 78,748 survivors who filed claims said they were
sexually or seriously physically abused. Nearly half of the 146 schools were run
by Catholic organizations, according to the National Center for Truth and
Reconciliation in Canada.

But the U.S. government inquiry isn’t as far-reaching as that of Canada, which
spent about $6 billion Canadian on its boarding school investigation, including
compensation to survivors. The U.S. Congress has appropriated $21 million over
the last three years for the Interior Department’s ongoing inquiry.

Thousands of boxes containing 750 million documents related to Native Americans,
including boarding school records, are held nearly 100 feet underground in the
federal American Indian Records Repository in Lenexa, Kan. (Salwan Georges/The
Washington Post)

During that time, Haaland’s team has been sifting through tens of millions of
pages of U.S. government records to piece together the history of boarding
schools for a series of reports. The records, many on fragile onion skin paper,
include attendance reports, contracts and correspondence. Documents are
scattered across the country at the National Archives, universities, tribal
offices and local historical societies. Nearly 100 feet underground in limestone
caves in Lenexa, Kan., thousands of boxes of additional records on Native
Americans and their education are stored in a temperature-controlled federal
repository.

A 1928 investigation commissioned by the federal government called the Meriam
Report chastised the schools for the mistreatment and malnourishment of
students. A 1969 congressional inquiry condemned the schools for trying to
destroy Native American culture, laying the groundwork for ending the
government’s assimilation policy in the boarding school system. But neither
investigation mentioned sexual abuse, and archived documents from the 1969
report contain no evidence that the matter was ever examined.

The Interior Department’s 2022 report, written by Assistant Secretary for Indian
Affairs Bryan Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe),
said Native American boys experienced more physical and sexual abuse in the
schools than girls. But it does not go further, and Interior officials said the
abuse was rarely — if ever — recorded in government files.

“I doubt that you could find a lot of Catholic records or federal government
records about abuse and neglect toward the students,” Haaland said.

Interior’s report, instead, focused on the history of the boarding school era
and how it targeted Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children.
It was the first government effort to count the schools and list their
locations. The report also revealed that at least 500 boys and girls died at the
schools — and that the number could “be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Many were buried in unmarked graves at schools, the report said.

(Meryl Schenker for The Washington Post)
“This has never been about religion. It’s been about people abusing children.”
Matthew War BonnetBoarding school survivor, holding replicas of a rope and a
strap used to lash children
Boarding school survivor, holding replicas of a rope and a strap used to lash
children
(Meryl Schenker for The Washington Post)



As part of her effort, Haaland traveled to 12 places across the country, from
Oklahoma to Alaska, on what she called “The Road to Healing” tour. For up to
eight hours a day, she listened to stories of physical and sexual abuse told by
survivors and their descendants. Survivor stories are being compiled by the
healing coalition and the Interior Department into an oral history project that
may be displayed by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

For many, Haaland’s listening sessions were the first chance to confront the
government and say out loud what happened to them.

One afternoon in April 2023, hundreds of survivors packed into a cavernous hall
supported by giant cedar columns on the Tulalip Tribes’ reservation in
Washington state. After an opening ceremony of Native American drumming and
singing, Haaland and Newland took their seats at the front. One by one, elderly
boarding school survivors stood to tell their stories.

Nancy Shippentower of the Puyallup Tribe said her husband had been sexually
abused at a boarding school in Oregon when he was little. “He said that he was
an altar boy and he was raped by the priests,” she said. “He was sexually abused
by the nuns. And his hands were beat black and blue.”

Matthew War Bonnet, 78, who was a student at the St. Francis school in Rosebud,
S.D., and now lives in Snohomish, Wash., with one of his drums and a blanket
given to him by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
(Meryl Schenker for The Washington Post)

When Matthew War Bonnet, 78, of the Sicangu Lakota tribe, stood up and began to
speak, a hush fell over the room.

At age 6, War Bonnet had been sent to the St. Francis Mission Indian School in
Rosebud, S.D. War Bonnet said he and other children were beaten so badly that
they were often sent to the infirmary for treatment.

War Bonnet held up replicas of a rope and a strap used to lash children as
punishment. The rope was four strands tied together. They called it the “Jesus
rope,” War Bonnet said.

The strap carried strands of razor-sharp metal strips.

“This strap taught me not to feel,” said War Bonnet, his voice cracking.

A year later, in her Washington office, Haaland singled out his testimony among
the hundreds of accounts she had heard. Tears filled her eyes.

“It’s a terrible, horrific, devastating history,” Haaland said. “You name the
worst thing that you could imagine happening to people and it happened to
Indigenous people right here in this country.”

ABOUT THIS STORY

The Post is examining the legacy of America’s network of Indian boarding
schools. Do you have a tip or story idea for our investigation? Email our team
at boardingschools@washpost.com.

Reporting by Sari Horwitz, Dana Hedgpeth, Emmanuel Martinez and Scott Higham.
Photography by Salwan Georges.

Additional reporting by Alice Crites, Riley Ceder and Ben Baker.

Graphics by Janice Kai Chen. Design and development by Natalie Vineberg.
Additional development by Jake Crump.

Editing by David S. Fallis, Sarah Childress and Wendy Galietta. Additional
editing by Jenna Pirog, Martha Murdock, Jay Wang and Courtney Kan.

Design editing by Madison Walls. Photo editing by Robert Miller. Photo research
by Troy Witcher. Graphic editing by Emily M. Eng. Data editing by Meghan Hoyer.

Additional support from Cameron Barr, Kathy Baird, Matthew Callahan, Brandon
Carter, Matt Clough, Maddie Driggers, Stephanie Hays, Jeff Leen, Jenna Lief,
Jordan Melendrez, Sarah Murray, Amy Nakamura, Kyley Schultz, Erica Snow and
Peter Wallsten.

METHODOLOGY

The Post identified Catholic priests, sisters and brothers who were accused of
sexual abuse and worked at Indian boarding schools by reviewing their employment
histories.

To establish school locations, The Post relied on data provided by the National
Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, or NABS, and the U.S.
Interior Department, identifying 523 schools.

The Catholic Church ran or was affiliated with 82 boarding schools, according to
NABS and other boarding school documents. Reporters identified the dioceses and
religious orders for 72 schools based on information from Catholic Truth &
Healing, a group of archivists and historians who conduct boarding school
research.

While the Catholic Church operated the most schools of any religious group, some
schools were run by Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists and other groups. By the
1980s, most of the boarding schools had closed or been turned over to the tribes
or successor organizations to run.

Reporters focused on schools operated by the Catholic Church because of the
availability of records and lawsuits by former students alleging sexual abuse.
These records include lists of priests and members of religious orders who have
been publicly identified by their dioceses or orders as being accused of
“credible" or “established” claims of sexual abuse.

There is no standard for inclusion on these lists. In some cases, the
allegations have been investigated by dioceses or provinces and determined to
have merit; in others, the claims could not be investigated because too much
time had passed or the alleged abuser had died.

The Jesuits West Province, for example, say its list includes members “against
whom a credible claim of sexual abuse of a minor (under the age of 18) or a
vulnerable adult has been made.” It notes that inclusion “does not imply that
the claims are true and correct or that the accused individual has been found
guilty of a crime or liable for civil claims.” It says anyone named on a list
has been removed from the ministry.

Experts caution that the lists are incomplete: Most disclose only clergy members
and those who served after the 1950s. Some of the lists fail to include any
information about where people worked, the dates of employment or the years of
abuse.

The Post compiled more than a dozen lists of priests, brothers and sisters
accused of sexual abuse and built a data set of the names of more than 5,000
churches, missions and schools to which they had been assigned. Reporters then
searched the data set and identified Indian boarding schools based on their name
and location.

From the diocesan lists, reporters identified 64 priests, 20 sisters and 11
brothers who worked at 17 schools, most of them in Montana, South Dakota and
Alaska. Some had been assigned to a school as early as the 1890s, and one had
worked as recently as 2003 at an institution that assumed control of a boarding
school.

The Post also identified two priests, one brother and an additional school by
reviewing ProPublica’s data set of members of the Catholic Church accused of
sexual misconduct. Through lawsuits, reporters found 24 additional priests,
brothers and sisters who worked at four other boarding schools.

To calculate consecutive years of employment and abuse reported at individual
schools, The Post included only individuals for whom specific years of work and
abuse were known.

The Post used data from BishopAccountability.org to fill in missing assignment
histories. For 20 people, there were no assignment dates. The Post was unable to
identify when 13 individuals worked at four schools because of missing
employment dates.

The reporting for the investigation also drew on information collected by
journalist Mary Annette Pember and her work at Indian Country Today, as well as
stories by Native News Online, Global Sisters Report, Reuters, Desolate Country,
Huffington Post, South Dakota Public Radio and the Great Falls Tribune in
Montana. Also reviewed was the U.S. Interior Department’s Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. Other resources included
“Education for Extinction,” by David Wallace Adams; “American Indian Education:
A History,” by Jon Reyhner and Jeanne Eder; and “Battlefield & Classroom,” by
Richard Henry Pratt.

Read more about Native Americans

Hand-curated

‘In the name of God’: Native American children endured years of sexual abuse at
boarding schools

May 29, 2024

They took the children: U.S. created Indian boarding schools to destroy cultures
and seize land

May 29, 2024

‘12 years of hell’: Indian boarding school survivors share their stories

Aug. 7, 2023

View all 12 stories
Share
Sari HorwitzSari Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. She
has been at The Post for 40 years and is the author of the series "Justice in
Indian Country" and the co-author of the book "American Cartel: Inside the
Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry." @sarihorwitz
Dana HedgpethDana Hedgpeth is a Native American journalist who has been at The
Post for 25 years. She is an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North
Carolina. At The Post, she has covered topics including Native Americans and
their history, Pentagon spending, the U.S. defense industry, and the local rail
and bus systems, governments and courts. @postmetrogirl
Emmanuel MartinezEmmanuel Martinez is an investigative data reporter at The
Washington Post, where he uses data, statistics and programming to tell stories.
@eh_mah_nwel
Scott HighamScott Higham is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning reporter who
was assigned to The Washington Post's Investigative Unit. He is the co-author of
"American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry."
@ScottHigham1
Salwan GeorgesSalwan Georges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist
covering news nationally and internationally for The Washington Post. In 2021,
Georges was named Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year
International. In 2023, he was named Photographer of the Year by the National
Press Photographers Association. @salwangeorges|
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If you click “I accept,” in addition to processing data using cookies and
similar technologies for the purposes to the right, you also agree we may
process the profile information you provide and your interactions with our
surveys and other interactive content for personalized advertising.

If you do not accept, we will process cookies and associated data for strictly
necessary purposes and process non-cookie data as set forth in our Privacy
Policy (consistent with law and, if applicable, other choices you have made).


WE AND OUR PARTNERS PROCESS COOKIE DATA TO PROVIDE:

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Create profiles for
personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising.
Create profiles to personalise content. Use profiles to select personalised
content. Measure advertising performance. Measure content performance.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different
sources. Develop and improve services. Store and/or access information on a
device. Use limited data to select content. Use limited data to select
advertising. List of Partners (vendors)

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