Saint Kateri Center of Chicago
Civic & Social Organization - Chicago, Illinois, United States
Saint Kateri Center of Chicago Employees
Saint Kateri Center of Chicago Details
In 1982, a group of Chicago American Indian elders gathered with the shared vision of creating a place of prayer for their Indian community. The dream came to birth in a small storefront in the Uptown neighborhood with the help of two Sinsinawa Dominican sisters. This place of welcome was named "Anawim Center". In the Fall of 2010, Anawim Center changed its name to "Kateri Center of Chicago" to honor blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. Along with this name change, we moved to St. Benedict Parish Campus and now located in the old convent. We are blessed to have a chapel on site to have our Eucharistic Celebrations. After Kateri's Canonization in the Fall of 2012 is we when added "Saint" to our center's name.Kateri formally provides spiritual guidance for Indigenous Catholics, scholarships for Catholic education, Indigenous culture and heritage studies, and opportunities to continue ancestral wisdom and oral history. Acting as a meeting place for Chicago's urban Indigenous population, Kateri hosts Sunday worship services, elder luncheons, American Indian Speakers Bureau guest speakers, prayer circles, powwows, and informal gatherings to uphold a sense of kinship for Indigenous community members separated from their tribal nations. More than the formal services recognized by the Archdiocese of Chicago and published on the Kateri website, Indigenous community members enjoy friendships, sharing of resources, preservation of customs and traditions, Indigenous languages, foods, ceremonies, traditional healings, music, dance, crafts, and a sense of belonging.
