Indian Catholic missions and bishops in the 1880s wrote a petition pushing for the veneration of Kateri Tekakwitha. In that petition, they stated that she was pure and holy and a gift unto the Native Americans. They asked for the venerations of Tekakwitha and the Jesuits Isaac Jogues and Brother René Goupil, two Catholic missionaries who had been slain by the Mohawks in Osernnenon a few decades before Kateri’s birth. They concluded their petition by stating that these venerations will help encourage Catholicism among other Native Americans.