Associated Press  27/07/2024 MESCALERO, New Mexico (AP) — Anne Marie Brillante never imagined she would have to choose between being Apache and being Catholic. To her, and many others in the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico who are members of St. Joseph Apache Mission, their Indigenous culture had always been intertwined with faith. Both are sacred. “Hearing we had to choose, that was a shock,” said a tearful Brillante, a member of the mission’s parish council. The focus of this tense, unresolved episode is the 8-foot Apache Christ painting. For this close-knit community, it is a revered icon created by Franciscan friar Robert Lentz in 1989. It depicts Christ as a Mescalero medicine man, and has hung behind the church’s altar for 35 years under a crucifix as a

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