Bishop remembered for including Indian practices

GALLUP, N.M. (AP) – When Donald Pelotte became the nation’s first Native American bishop, he chose to hold his ordination not in a cathedral but at Red Rock State Park.

That day in 1986 was so gusty, the bishops’ miters were blown from their heads and church officials were covered with red dust.

“After the ordination, we all had to go to our showers and get rid of the red sand,” Monsignor Leo Gomez recalled in a homily at Pelotte’s funeral Mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral on Thursday. “It was history being made.”

Parishioners in the packed cathedral, which was filled with the scent of incense, remembered Pelotte for including Native American talents and symbols in his church services and said he was an inspiration for other American Indians to serve in the church hierarchy.

Pelotte served the Gallup diocese, which includes the Navajo tribal lands of northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona, for 22 years.

Rev. Dana Pelotte, the former bishop’s twin brother, talked about how close the two youngest boys of five were growing up on a farm outside Waterville, Maine.

“Mom would find us behind doors holding hands asleep and that is a relationship that continued throughout our lifetimes,” Dana Pelotte said, his voice at times filled with emotion.

Donald Pelotte ordained his brother in 1999, marking the first time a bishop had ordained his twin in the Roman Catholic church.

Dana Pelotte said his brother touched many lives in Gallup.

“He needs to be with the people he served forever and that’s why we thought he should be here,” Dana Pelotte said after his brother’s remains were placed in the cathedral’s crypt.

The Mass was attended by church leaders from at least five states.

After the service, Ernest Tsosie Jr. of the town of Navajo, said Pelotte used incense made from cedar and eagle feathers during his services.

“He’s Native American, so he knew what kind of life we had out here,” Tsosie said. “Every time I heard him speak, he moved me. He made me want to divorce my wife and become a priest.”

Pelotte’s father was a member of the Abenaki tribe and the family for a time had no electricity or running water when he was growing up.

Tsosie said Pelotte understood the hardships and poverty on the reservation and worked to help all people, not just Catholics. Up to 40 percent of parishioners in the diocese are Indian.

Pelotte, who was ordained in 1972, died Jan. 7 at age 64 in a Florida hospital from internal bleeding and a sepsis infection.

He retired in 2008, a year after sustaining serious injuries in an apparent fall down the stairs at his Gallup residence. Physicians who examined the bishop at the time contacted police about a possible assault, but no charges were ever filed.

Deacon Timoteo Lujan of Grants, who worked with Pelotte, said the former bishop suffered a traumatic brain injury in the fall and didn’t remember what happened.

“It was a tragic ending to a really meaningful ministry,” Lujan said.

Several parishioners said after the Mass they were saddened because many never had a chance to say goodbye to Pelotte, who left the parish to receive medical treatment for the brain injury.

“They just whizzed him away and nobody got to talk to him,” said Linda Martin, a Pima tribal member from Sacaton, Ariz.

Her husband, Deacon Sidney Martin, said he wished he could have said goodbye in person to Pelotte, whom he said told Native Americans never to lose a sense of themselves and their ancestors.

“I’d just say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We try to live our lives the way you lived yours,” Sidney Martin said.