Argentine Indian beatified by Catholic Church in Patagonia

The Associated Press - November 11, 2007

CHIMPAY, Argentina : Ceferino Namuncura became the first Argentine Indian to be beatified by the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, in a ceremony before tens of thousands including Indians in bright ponchos and plumed headdresses.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, led the beatification in the wind-swept Patagonian community of Chimpay, as traditional Catholic rites mixed with sporadic drumming, cow horns and chants in the Mapuche language.

Namuncura, who lived from 1886 to 1905 and is revered for his piety and humility, has a wide following among Argentina's poor. Police estimated at least 80,000 people attended the beatification, which attracted Mapuche Indians from Argentina and from neighboring Chile.

"Let us learn from Ceferino to be good children of God and brothers to all," Bertone told the crowd spread out on a grassy field.

"Viva Ceferino!" church leaders shouted, raising a cheer among the crowd.

Church investigators have attributed a miracle to Namuncura based on an Argentine woman's claim that devotion to him healed her of uterine cancer in 2000. On Sunday, she told journalists there was no medical explanation for her recovery.

"Doctors told me, 'this is impossible.'" said Valeria Herera, 24. "But they were never able to explain it to me scientifically speaking."

Namuncura, the son of a Mapuche Indian chief, studied at a Catholic school in Buenos Aires run by the Salesian order, began seminary training in Argentina and went to Rome for more studies before dying there at 18 of tuberculosis.

Some have criticized Namuncura's beatification, noting that his father resisted Argentine military campaigns blamed for eradicating indigenous peoples.

Namuncura "was handed over to be converted to Christianity," said Jorge Nahuel, a spokesman for one Mapuche group. He called the beatification a "real offense against the history of our people."

The ceremony was authorized in July by Pope Benedict XVI, who has made efforts to beatify subjects in their homelands instead of Rome. Beatification is sometimes the first step to sainthood.

The first Indian saint in the Americas, Juan Diego, was canonized by then-Pope John Paul II in Mexico City in 2002.