In this essay, I argue that the Premonstratensian or Norbertine Order located in Berne Abbey in the Netherlands responded strongly to a call for international ministry by going to northeast Wisconsin for Walloon settlers from Belgium and their descendants in 1893. However, these priests and brothers fell much farther short of internationalism in the mission to the Oneida Nation reservation they received in 1898. I will make my case by detailing these two missions and analyzing how the Norbertines acknowledged their international nature and practiced or failed to practice internationalism in them. Diving into the mission histories requires discussion of Catholic fears of and competition with the Old Catholic Church in Europe and the Spiritualist movement and Episcopal Church in the United States. My essay will utilize letters written by Norbertines, newspaper articles contemporaneous to these missions, histories produced throughout the order’s time in Wisconsin, and scholarship on the Catholic Church between the First and Second Vatican Councils. I conclude that the lack of internationalism in the Norbertine mission to the Oneidas reflects a longer historical tension in the Catholic Church between recognizing and denying the sovereignty of Indigenous communities as nations.
Alex Gruber (Tue,) studied this question.