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Comment by tejtm | Hacker News Reader

I dislike religious people, generally speaking, but Catholics in the PNW are the source of a lot of reliable historical accounts of tribal groups. I’m somewhat resentful, but they did good work recording linguistic data. Better than the miners would have done.

Just saying.

Jesuits is one of the forward-looking and outgoing Catholic orders. They work on topics that both non-believers and believers could agree. Matteo Ricci was fluent in Chinese culture and language. Jean de Brebeuf learned aboriginal language and culture in the present day's Canada.

Many other orders have not been so much on going to foreign places and are pretty insular to the unfamiliar.

If we're talking about abusing and killing people, how do we weigh the factors of "reliable historical accounts" and "good work recording linguistic data"?

It’s not about weighing anything, they simply left something useful for posterity. Their observations and record keeping has helped preserve some scraps of indigenous culture that would have otherwise been lost, even to surviving members of tribes today. That’s a good thing, even if missionaries did more bad than good overall.

'My house burned down'

'Now you have some nice charcoal for BBQs.'

> In America their mission is correcting Native Americans with "Indian schools".

It may be possible, but is certainly difficult, to imagine a more flagrant abuse of the word “is”.

It may also be probable that you were not flagrantly abused by nuns in mandatory cataclysm classes. I was not so lucky, but unlike my classmates, at least I did not get beat again at home when parents learned I had angered the nuns by asking (admittedly loaded) questions.

But "is" is no less than exactly what I carry now. Thank you for you for reaching out to broaden your horizons.

> It may also be probable that you were not flagrantly abused by nuns in mandatory cataclysm classes.

I’m not sure what bearing that has on a factual understanding of the current mission of the Jesuit order (which whatever other present or past offenses it can legitimately be blamed for, abuses committed by nuns in “cataclysm” classes is a pretty big stretch) in the North America.

ah spellcheck; "catechism"

No longer being sure is a good start, keep it up it you can.

Catholic Indian schools still exist, now usually with something like a token hour class after Mass dedicated to their ancestors culture. Still called Indian schools, still disgusting.

And then converting them

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