Church must build on successes of Pope's 'penitential pilgrimage' to Canada
National Post, 29 July 2023
Progress is being made in reconciliation efforts with Indigenous Canadians, but there's more to do
Exactly a year ago, on July 29, Pope Francis departed Iqaluit for Rome, having concluded his “penitential pilgrimage,” as he called it, to Canada’s Indigenous peoples. What might be done a year afterward to secure the fruits of that visit?
Earlier this week, I proposed some steps that Canada’s Indigenous leaders might consider. Today I propose steps for Catholic leaders.
Canada’s Catholic bishops have made good on a series of major initiatives announced in September 2021 after the news of potential unmarked graves at Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc. It had been a hot summer, featuring incendiary rhetoric and literal flames, with Catholic churches going up flames, including Indigenous ones.
The bishops arranged for an unprecedented summit in Rome, including many hours of personal meetings with Pope Francis over the course of several days. The papal visit itself was organized urgently, prepared on an abbreviated schedule, but was still comprehensive, with visits to Edmonton and environs, Quebec City and Iqaluit.
A reconciliation fund was set up with a goal to raise $30 million over five years; it’s now ahead of schedule, with more than a third of the total pledged. This past spring, a Vatican statement on the so-called “doctrine of discovery” clarified points that had been widely misrepresented by political activists.
Yet it seems that the main lesson from the papal visit has not yet been fully appreciated. Pope Francis showed that the Catholic faith should promote both contrition and conversion. Conversion of mind for those who regarded Indigenous peoples as inferior; conversion of heart so that conflict is replaced by a communion in faith; and conversion of culture, so that the seeds of the gospel, present in Indigenous history, can find their fulfillment in the Christian faith which nearly two-thirds of Indigenous Canadians already share.
While Pope Francis himself provided a model of sensitive and challenging rhetoric, old habits still endure. Canada’s bishops issued four pastoral letters in February, giving their assessment of the papal visit.
It was notable that there were four, not one. One each for the First Nations, Métis, Inuit and a fourth for the “People of God.” That’s how the national Indigenous structures organize themselves, but the mission of the Church is to fashion a communion of believers, a unity that brings together a diversity of peoples. Indigenous Canadians are part of the one “People of God.”
Catholic leaders need to regain their confidence that the gospel is good news for everyone; certainly Pope Francis said as much. Apologies have their necessary place, but they do not constitute a means to any end, or an end in themselves. Apologies are a means to healing within the Church, for Indigenous peoples who are already Christian, that communion in Christ might be deepened. And for Indigenous peoples who are not Christian, apologies should remove a legitimate obstacle that obscures the most precious gift Christians wish to share, Jesus Christ.
The letters have something of a defensive crouch, acknowledging that, in organizing the papal visit on a compressed schedule, “consultation with First Nations leaders fell short of what many desired and expected.” The massive project of a papal visit was a gift that should be appreciated by all; not an occasion for grumbling by Indigenous politicians whose every demand was not met.
Only in the letter to the “People of God” do the bishops speak as Pope Francis did about “celebrated figures of the Church in Canada (who) set up missions, schools, hospitals, orphanages and other centres of social service to meet the ever-increasing needs of both the colonial and Indigenous populations. Such activities were repeated for centuries throughout this country.”
Continue reading at the National Post.