Indigenous Leaders declare ‘Enough is enough’
Indigenous leaders from Canada and survivors of the nation’s notorious boarding schools where abuses continued for some 100 years, finally met with Pope Francis. The goal is to achieve a papal apology for abuses committed against them by Catholic priests and school workers.
Life is getting extremely uncomfortable for the ailing pontiff as 30 Indigenous elders from Canada—among them victims of horrific abuse at the hands of Canadian Catholics demand a formal papal apology. Victims have also asserted pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fulfil his promise to put in place the 94 recommendations of the commission, for these atrocities.
The Catholic Church, Canada had a strategy to “assimilate” 150,000 Indigenous children who were forcibly removed from their homes from 1831 and 1996. They were sent to boarding schools in far flung places, including Mr. Littlechild and others in the delegation. A legacy of sexual, physical and emotional abuse were commonplace, as was violence of vulnerable minors. Whilst, Malnutrition, disease, accidents, fires all resulted. The former head of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Murray Sinclair, estimates a staggering 6,000 children died or vanished in the decades that the schools were in operation.
The boarding schools main aim was the suppression of their original heritage, culture, language and religion. Following extensive hearings, the commission established the school system as a “conscious policy of cultural genocide.”
The horror surrounding the schools reached new levels in 2021 after announcements by three Indigenous communities. They had discovered with ground-penetrating radar multiple signs of hundreds of unmarked graves containing human remains of children at the sites of a former school in an Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. The school had closed in 1978 after complaints the Indigenous culture was being replaced with Catholicism. Multiple survivors testified at commission hearings that children died in the schools and were buried on the grounds. Searches for more remains are now underway at former school sites throughout the vast country. This is the latest chapter in the Catholic Church’s horrific record. It seems it takes the discovery of remains and the public outcry that results for the papacy to finally respond to the detailed accusations.
“We expect that these private encounters will allow the Holy Father to meaningfully address both the ongoing trauma and legacy of suffering faced by Indigenous peoples to this day,” the Canadian Bishops Conference said in a statement. That trauma includes “the role of the Catholic Church in the residential school system, which contributed to the suppression of Indigenous languages, culture and spirituality.”
Canada’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s investigation in 2015 determined that the church carried out sytsematic “cultural genocide’.
Catholic response to atrocities
The meetings in Rome should lay the foundation for an apostolic visit by Francis this summer. It is unknown if he will visit Kamloops where the children’s bodies were discovered. “This is something that is an important step,’ Gerald Antoine, chief of the Dene, Assembly of First Nations, said in Rome. Apparently, visiting delegates and the Pope had spoken about faith, and the positive role the church must “play in reconciliation and helping communities move forward.”
In 2009, Pope Benedict fell short of a meaningful apology, expressing “sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the Church” in Canada and offered “his sympathy and prayerful solidarity,” adding that “acts of abuse cannot be tolerated in society.”
Whilst in 2017 there was a similar demand by PM, Justin Trudeau but the Pope in 2018 replied by letter to reject the proposal, without any clear explanation.
There is speculation that Mr. Trudeau may now be demanding a substantial apology. The Protestant churches that ran just a third of the schools, along with the government, apologised and fulfilled their obligation to pay reparations in 2006. About 4.7 billion Canadian dollars, mostly from the government, has been paid to survivors and spent on various projects.
But the Catholic Church has fulfilled virtually none of its legal obligations to survivors, failing to pay most of its 25-million-dollar share of the reparations. In September, the Canadian bishop’s had pledged a willingness to raise 30 million dollars for reparations.
The last three popes have not been shy about calling out for forgiveness with many skeletons remaining firmly locked in their closets. In 2015, while visiting Bolivia, Francis apologised for the “grave sins” that were “committed against the native people of America in the name of God.” Two years later, he apologized for the silence of church leaders in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Twelve years ago, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Irish Catholics saying he was “truly sorry” about the abuses suffered by Irish children, including those coincidentally abused in residential institutions. Does it not seem history is repeating itself from east to west from generation to generation? How sincere is an apology that takes decades to be announced and only seems precipitated by stunning new evidence that comes to light?
Whilst in 2000, Pope John Paul II delivered a sweeping apology for the ’church’s errors over 2,000 years’, including religious intolerance towards Jews, women, Indigenous peoples and the poor.
Reflections on the magnitude of Crimes & Accountability
Do we not reflect how abhorrent it is that the supposed back bone and seat of moral and spiritual guidance for over 1.2 Billion adherents is today showing itself to be in flagrant abuse of its own laws and values?
Were the ruling religious body not ridiculed in the same manner at the time of Jesus pbuh, did he not call out against such abuses.”“If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6
Did not the ‘Didache’, in a future generation warn church officials, “Thou shalt not seduce young boys. Did the Council of Elvira A.D declare a rule that “men who sexually abuse boys shall not be given communion even at the end.” Why were such matters outwardly declared if they were not already taking place amongst the clergy?
How is it possible that time and time again the groups most exposed and vulnerable to abuse are the ones facing such atrocities? Where is the respect for original cultures and their core beliefs? Where is the accountability for governments and Human rights organisations to step in and demand criminal proceedings and reparations? Would such an apology ever be forthcoming without such overwhelming evidence? What other skeletons have not been exposed by the Church? How can we trust the Pope or any of his subjects to honour their supposed faith in the light of such hypocrisy? Do you as a person really want to have someone or a group like this represent your faith, right conduct and divine link to God?
Jesus pbuh warned us about such leaders in his era, Matthew 23 2:7: 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practise. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their fingers. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi[b] by others.
Do we not see how the synagogues today and their bishops and priests portray the same barbaric characters and how are such diabolical acts ever forgivable in the light of God?
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