A reconciliation path of renewed encounter

The Catholic Register, 25 June 2021

Catholic-Indigenous relations, both within and without the Church, are particularly raw at the moment.

The shortest night of the year allows only a few hours of darkness in which to set churches on fire. It was time enough for two Catholic churches to be burned to the ground before dawn on June 21, 2021, National Indigenous Peoples Day.

Both Sacred Heart Church and St. Gregory’s Church serve Indigenous communities, the former on Penticton Indian Band land and the latter on Osoyoos Indian Band land, both in the Diocese of Nelson, B.C. At press time neither suspects nor a motivation had been established.

Yet given the occasion of National Indigenous Peoples Day and the recent tension and anger after the Kamloops discovery of unmarked graves, it would be a surprise if the two were not related. The pastor of Sacred Heart, Fr. Obi Ibekwe, had actively acknowledged the pain and suffering in his community and had led a candlelight vigil for the Kamloops children in consultation with local Indigenous leaders.

The burning of a church is an act of grave sacrilege as well as a crime against the parishioners of Sacred Heart and St. Gregory’s. Sin begets sin, suffering begets suffering.

In the secular news, the residential schools issue is portrayed as an issue between Indigenous Canadians and the churches, particularly the Catholic Church.

But it is an issue within the household of faith, for the majority of Indigenous Canadians are Christians, a great many Catholic. It was our fellow Catholics who had their churches set ablaze, just as many of the children in the residential schools came from Catholic families. Those Catholic parents trusted that the religious orders who operated the schools would look after their children.

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