Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In this issue of the Sentinel, we celebrate all of the Catholic schools that are dedicated to the education of Native American and Native Alaskan elementary and high school students throughout the United States.

The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions has long recognized that receiving a Catholic school education has a life changing transformative effect in the lives of Native young people because Catholic schools provide them with a higher quality of education that improves their prospects for future success in college and in their chosen careers. Catholic schools challenge their students to excel by teaching them to be Christ-like in word and action, and by offering them a rigorous and well-rounded academic curriculum. Additionally, students in Catholic schools are nurtured in safe and supportive environments where they are encouraged to develop self-discipline and to set and achieve goals that benefit themselves and others.

On January 27, 2021, Rev. Ronald J. Nuzzi, Ph.D. authored an article, Ten Reasons Why Catholic Education Still Matters, that was posted on the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education website, In this article, Rev. Nuzzi, wrote the following:

Catholic School students learn that God is present and active in their lives and in the world. They learn to recognize the “footprints of God” in their daily experiences, especially in the midst of life’s challenges. They develop a sense of “sacramental awareness.” They see the signs of God’s love around them and become instruments of God’s grace in their own neighborhoods, communities, and the world. In an incarnational view of the world, there is no such thing as a secular subject as all learning helps to develop and bring to full bloom that image of God that is in each person.

You will be receiving this issue of the Sentinel during the month of June which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I pray that all of you will profoundly experience our Lord Jesus’ boundless love, compassion, and mercy during this holy month. I also pray that you will continually strive to align your hearts to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the pious practice of the First Fridays; and through acts of consecration, reparation, gratitude, and apostolic dedication to loving Christ and to assisting him in his saving works.

Commending you to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to the prayers of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Katharine Drexel, and of all the saints, I am,

Yours in Christ our Loving and Merciful Lord,

Fr. Henry Sands

Executive Director