Lac du Flambeau's Araia Breedlove and La Crosse Sister Sue Ernster on first-ever tribal land return

Araia Breedlove with the Lac du Flambeau Tribe and Sister Sue Ernster with the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration join to talk about a historic first: a land return — a reparations deal between the Catholic church and Native Americans.

The two tell the story of returning the Sister’s Marywood Spirituality Center in Arbor Vitae, Wis., back to the Tribe for $30,000 — the original price the sisters paid when the land was acquired in 1966.

Breedlove talks about how this is a step to repair the harms that came from Catholic boarding schools that forced Native children from home and made them assimilate. Nearly 1,000 tribal children died in those schools nationally, including some from the Lac du Flambeau Tribe and others in Wisconsin.

Sister Sue, president of the Franciscan Sisters in La Crosse, discusses why they came to the decision to return the land, how they came up with that price, and the kind of example this act of reparation sets for other Catholic institutions to begin to repair these harms done to Native Americans.

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