Vatican Project Bulldozes Apache Religion

WASHINGTON - In a clash of religions, some believers in Mother Earth and supporters of Holy Mother Church are locked in an Arizona land dispute that also involves culture, anthropology and science. Plus - if that's not enough - Congress and the courts.

Apache tribal leaders are trying to stop construction of a $200 million 8.6-acre telescope project atop Mount Graham in southeast Arizona. The Apaches have been to the mountaintop and, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., they don't have a dream, they have wide-eyed shock. They have seen bulldozers, cement trucks and construction workers begin tearing into the land they cherish as a holy ground. The mountain, which contains burial sites, acts as a conduit between the Apaches and their Great Spirit.

In the 1870s and 1880s, Apaches, led by Geronimo, were a strong but doomed force against the encroaching U.S. Army. A century later, it's another invasion, this time a takeover of some traditional religious practices that include Mount Graham. In an affidavit filed April 9 in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Franklin Stanley, an Apache spiritual leader and medicine man, said: "We pray to the mountain. The gods speak to us from the mountain. We worship on the mountain. . . . I am not saying that the waters, the plants or the mountain IS our god, like some would say, as in pagan idol worship. Our idea of what is a god is not that. Much of it is closer to what Christians would recognize, since Catholics, for instance, have holy water, saints who have healing powers, believe in visions and have sacred sites where respect is essential."

That argument, among others, is scheduled to receive a court hearing in early June when the Apache Survival Coalition, backed by two unanimous votes of the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council, seeks to halt the planned Mount Graham International Observatory.

The project, a partnership that includes the University of Arizona and the Vatican Observatory, came to national attention two years ago when environmental groups thought that the endangered red squirrel had a greater claim to the mountain than some stargazers who had other sites from which to choose. Due to a pro-development special-use authorization rider being added to the obscure Arizona-Idaho Conservation Act without one hearing - "midnight legislative maneuvering," a Smithsonian official called it - the university and the Vatican had their way over the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

With the environmentalists bumped, now it's the Apaches who are in the way. The Vatican, eager to be king of the mountain, is leading the charge. The Rev. George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, dismisses the Apache claims: "We are not convinced by any of the arguments thus far presented that Mount Graham possesses a sacred character which precludes responsible and legitimate use of the land." Coyne, a Jesuit priest with a doctorate in astronomy from Georgetown University, said in his court affidavit that he is not anxious "to allow the heat of controversy to generate meaningless theoretical generalizations that tend to overrule reason and common sense."

The generators of heat, the Vatican's astronomer says with all but infallible certitude, are some environmental "ideologues" who "seek to manipulate the American Indians."

This is a standard charge leveled against environmentalists who align themselves with native tribes in land disputes. In this instance, the Vatican, which by 1990 had raised $2 million from U.S. businessmen for this land grab, is saying that the Apaches are being taken for a ride by such groups as the Audubon Society and Earth First! Be careful of "the self-interest of a few," Coyne warns the tribe.

The Apaches, numbering 11,000, have troubles enough enduring reservation poverty, disease and unemployment without being patronized by the Vatican. Coyne has insulted the tribe by suggesting it is a front group for environmentalists he disagrees with. The Jesuit appeals to "reason and common sense," the twin pillars of European thought that have been used for 500 years to plunder native tribes when outsiders lusted for land. From the Apaches to the Zunis, where is the tribe that reason and common sense have helped? In the 17th century, the Puritan preacher Cotton Mather called New England Indians "agents of Satan." Today, it's a Jesuit calling Apaches agents of Earth First.

The 10,700-foot Mount Graham, taken from the tribe in 1874, is now part of the Coronado National Forest. The Apache Survival Coalition is in court because it believes that the planned observatory breaks the American Indian Religious Act, the Historic Preservation Act, and other laws. "The mountain is holy," says Stanley, a grandson of an Apache chief. "If you take Mount Graham from use, you will take our culture. You have killed many of us, you killed my grandfather. You have tried to change us. . . . Why do you come and try to take my church away and treat the mountain as if it was about money instead of respect?"

Don't the Apaches know - that's the American way. And, too, the Vatican way.

(Copyright, 1992, Washington Post Writers Group)