With the daily drama of politics, too few of us are likely aware of how many Native Americans continue to be exploited. On July 19 and 20, a coalition of Catholic sisters, including myself, joined Indigenous elders to stand in solidarity with the Western Apache in defense of their most sacred site, Oak Flat<\/a> (Chi\u2019chil Bildagoteel), Arizona, which risks becoming a two-mile-wide copper mine due to a federal land transfer to a private corporation on August 19.<\/p>\n Oak Flat\u2019s decades-long federal protections were only recently retracted, through a last-minute provision on a \u201cmust-pass\u201d defense-spending bill in Congress. Now, after several legal battles, the Apache site for sacred ceremonies, since time immemorial, faces total demolition by Resolution Copper, a multinational mining company and subsidiary of Rio Tinto, a corporation with a global track record of ecological damage and mishandling an important cultural site<\/a>.<\/p>\n Apache Stronghold, a coalition of Western Apache and other allies, petitioned to protect Oak Flat with a religious freedom case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. But in May, the Supreme Court declined<\/a> to hear the Apaches\u2019 case, despite the Apache Stronghold\u2019s assertion that the land transfer and mine would destroy their ability to practice Apache religion, a religion which is inextricably tied to the land at Oak Flat. Two justices<\/a> (Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas) dissented against the majority decision to not hear the case, calling it a \u201cgrievous mistake\u201d and a threat to religious freedom everywhere.<\/p>\n As members of the Catholic Church, the delegation of sisters stood with their Apache brothers and sisters in humble acknowledgment of the harm done historically by the Church to Indigenous people through the suppression of their religion and the theft of their land. The past is not past.<\/p>\n Sheila Karpan, Wheat Ridge<\/em><\/p>\n Re: “Grateful for Mesa County deputy’s enforcement of laws,” July 25 letter to the editor<\/p>\nLaw enforcement must also abide by the laws<\/h4>\n