NATHAN PHILLIPS (aka Talking Bull) AND OTHER PROTESTERS STORM STEPS OF DC BASILICA, DEMAND PUNISHMENT FOR COVINGTON BOYS

The Native American activist who faced off Friday with a group of Catholic high schoolers at the Washington, D.C., March for Life demanded from the steps of the nation’s largest Catholic church that the boys be “reprimanded” both now and in the future.

The activist, Nathan Phillips, also called on the Catholic Church to offer reparations to indigenous people, according to video obtained by The Daily Caller.

Phillips, along with a group of other chanting protesters, seemingly endeavored to enter the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C. during a Vigil Mass on Saturday, as first reported by the Catholic News Agency (CNA).

In video footage taken on-scene, a person can be heard saying, “This is a non-violent peaceful action here. Some of us are going to go to the front of the Shrine so we’d like to … deliver our message there to the front of the Shrine.”

“If anyone wants to go inside and pray, you can go in small groups,” another demonstrator says. “No reason why they can stop you from going to pray.”

“Just say you’re going to Mass,” another person advises, while someone else says, “I’ll watch the cops.”

When they reach the church, several protesters attempt to enter the building before security personnel shuts the doors.

After being introduced as “Uncle Nate,” Phillips goes on to read prepared remarks:

We demand that the students of Covington Catholic High School be reprimanded — not just by the school officials as seniors, but by their upcoming universities. We demand the Catholic Church hold themselves responsible for the hundred-plus years of genocide that our indigenous people have endured — and still persist through — by [implementing] the following: with reparations of land and restorations to the indigenous peoples in the U.S. and across the world.

We demand that the Catholic Church revoke the papal bulls related to the doctrine of discovery, which laid the foundation for religious prejudice and the dehumanization of indigenous peoples.

The list of demands is met with loud howls and shouts of approval from the crowd.

A security guard on the scene reportedly characterized the incident to CNS as “really upsetting,” especially given that the church was packed with Christians who had attended the annual March for Life in the nation’s capital.

“We had hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the country come here to celebrate life — to celebrate each other together,” the guard was quoted as saying. “That a protest tried to come inside during Mass was really the worst.”

About 60 protesters had gathered outside the church to protest the Covington Catholic boys’ alleged taunting of Phillips, as well as the supposed “colonial violence that the Catholic Church reproduces every day,” according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Nathan Phillips outside the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Security for the church reportedly had to lock the doors to the basilica during a “tense” moment when the activists seemingly intended to enter the sanctuary while banging their drums and saying chants.

“I was outside when the protesters were coming up the steps of the basilica,” an anonymous seminarian told the CNS. “I was curious because of the noise and chanting. At first, I didn’t take it too seriously, but as they came up the steps we were told to go inside. I was with a group of people from California there for the March for Life. The security people shut the...

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