Catholics considering findings of residential schools report
Pope needs to make an official apology, says one survivor
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Monday, June 15, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A little more than a week after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) report looking into the affects of residential schools, Bishop Mark Hagemoen is considering what it will mean for his diocese.
Marie Speakman who was separated from her parents and put in a federal hostel in Deline when she was a young girl holds a picture her younger sisters while they were staying at Grollier Hall, the residential school in Inuvik, in the early 1960s. Speakman asked that their names be withheld. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
The report is pinned to the finding that of around 150,000 aboriginal children separated from their families over the past 150 years around 6,000 died during their time at residential schools and about 60 per cent of those were Catholic-run institutions. Justice Murray Sinclair's 94 recommendations submitted as part of the report last week include having the Pope visit Canada to issue an apology to survivors, families and communities for the church's role in spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse of aboriginal children at Catholic-run residential schools.
The Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, who is based in Yellowknife, said the recommendation was somewhat unexpected but he nonetheless believes it would be a good idea for the pope to apologize and to visit.
"It was probably one of the recommendations that surprised a lot of people," he said. "Pope Benedict gave an expression of sorrow in 2009. But Pope Francis is a man of many surprises. The question would not be whether he would come but when he would come. This is one of those issues he would have a heart to address but I can't say whether he would get here before a deadline, or whether he would respond."
He thinks a visit from the Pope could be a helpful step in the healing process.
"I don't think (survivors) are pinning their moving forward on Pope Francis coming here or not. That's the anecdotal sentiment I'm getting, but I think it would be helpful if he was to come."
Hagemoen said there are many recommendations that need to be considered and it will take time to reflect on them before his diocese decides what to do next.
"We need to determine what would be the key or the most important initiatives to act on as a result of that dialogue, especially with our aboriginal peoples here," he said. "That process will probably be over the next year."
Hagemoen said while living in Vancouver he worked on the Catholic Entities part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement a decade old $79-million agreement involving Canadian Catholic participation in residential school.
"I caught the latter part of the process," he said."I was present for the first day of the (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) event in Ottawa. I've been recently appointed to something called the Aboriginal Committee of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. So I've had some exposure to it all."
Asked if he's surprised that Catholicism is still so popular in the territory, Hagemoen said that in some ways it is. He said aboriginal Catholics see a value in having students attend school and to be able to function in society when they've grown up, and see the structure provided by organized religion as a good base in order to send them down the right paths. But they won't stand for having children forcibly removed from their parents.
"In terms of the general thinking on many of the experiences at the residential schools they would draw some big distinctions," he said. "Taking young people away from families is a big distinction."
The 2011 National Household Survey found that more than a third of NWT residents identify as being Catholic. Hagemoen says the majority of those people are aboriginal. He said the diocese has a new approach that draws a distinction between the ways of the past the "colonial approach" which assumed non-aboriginal culture was superior and needed to raise up aboriginal people according to its values and the inclusive attitude it holds today.
"That is a big difference," he said. "Between that old approach and the system now."
Practise what you preach
Marie Speakman was raised Catholic but stopped calling herself one about six years ago. The 57-year-old who was sent to a federal hostel in Deline when she was a girl, said she's had a change of heart, that she believes her connection with God isn't incumbent on her involvement with any specific church, although she now attends the Glad Tidings Fellowship Church.
Speakman said she was a ten-year-old when her siblings were taken away to Grollier Hall, the residential school that was in Inuvik. Speakman said one of her sisters still identifies with the Catholic faith, but the other has come to the same conclusion she came to.
Speakman said she doesn't connect the crimes committed by church members with the Catholic church itself. She said she suspects many NWT Catholics feel the same way, which accounts for the large number of practising Catholics within the territory.
But, she said, there are still many survivors in the territory who harbour resentment for the church, and she feels a visit and apology from Pope Francis is due.
"It's practising what you preach," she said. "Someone needs to own up for the abuse suffered by so many generations. I think if you apologize it's something."
