Dissonant Worlds: Roger Vandersteene among the Cree

When Roger Vandersteene arrived in the wilderness of northern Canada in 1946 he found an aboriginal spirituality that inspired his own poetic and artistic nature which encouraged him to pursue a religious vision that united Cree tradition and Catholicism. Until his death in 1976, Vandersteen attempted, through his paintings, poetry and liturgical modifications, to ground Christian ideas in Cree imagery and spirituality. Dissonant Worlds: traces the remarkable career of Vandersteene and his life as an Oblate missionary among the Cree, his intensive study of the Cree language and folkways, his status as a Cree medicine man, and the evolution of his views on the relationship between aboriginal traditions and Roman Catholicism. Above all, Dissonant Worlds traces Vandersteene’s quest to build a new religious reality: a strong, spiritually powerful Cree church, a magnificent Cree formation of Christian life.