From Father Raymond de Souza:
With anticipation growing for the arrival of Pope Francis in Canada, the rededication of a church in Edmonton last Sunday was a helpful reminder of the actual state of Catholic-Indigenous relations. Next week, an avalanche of politicized misinformation will likely obscure the progress that has been made.
In October 1990, Phil Fontaine — a future three-time AFN national chief — effectively broke the silence around residential schools. (Fontaine . . . went to Rome in March to meet Pope Francis.) He had been to a residential school operated by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), the Catholic religious order that ran 48 residential schools, a majority of the Catholic ones.
Nine months later, in July 1991, the OMI issued a comprehensive, four-page apology to some 15,000 Indigenous people gathered at Lac Ste. Anne near Edmonton, both for abuses in the schools and the rationale for the schools themselves. Pope Francis will visit the annual Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage on Tuesday.
Concrete action followed that initial apology 31 years ago. In October 1991, Sacred Heart in Edmonton, a historic and imposing church built in 1913, was declared by Archbishop Joseph MacNeil to be a “First Nations, Métis and Inuit parish.”
The OMI provided the priests who would minister in a parish dedicated to preserving and upholding the traditions of Indigenous Catholics. They have been doing so ever since.
It is a reminder that Catholic–Indigenous relations are not primarily a matter of the bishops and AFN political leaders. Given that many, if not most, Indigenous Canadians are Christians, it is a matter of healing within the community, not between rivals. That confounds media narratives that prefer opposing factions, and the political leaders who benefit from such polarization.
In August 2020, a fire ripped through Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples. It was caused by improper disposal of materials from a smudging ceremony, an Indigenous tradition long incorporated into worship at Sacred Heart.
Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton was quickly on the scene, and immediately promised to restore Sacred Heart — not an automatic thing, given the reality of parish closures. Indeed, a decision was taken to rebuild the interior of Sacred Heart with an emphasis on Indigenous traditions — a tabernacle in the shape of a teepee, and an altar laid upon a live-edge tree.
All of that was planned before the Kamloops discovery of probable gravesites last year. While that ignited a political firestorm that led to the current papal visit, the work at Sacred Heart continued. When it was decided that Pope Francis would visit it, work was accelerated so that the rededication could take place in time.
Fernie Marty, an Elder at Sacred Heart, spoke not of opposition but of harmony with European liturgical traditions. “We have a lot of similarities with our traditions and our customs and they seem to blend so well together, it’s amazing,” he said.
What does reconciliation look like at this Indigenous-led parish? The OMI are a dwindling order in Canada. So an Indian priest, Father Susai Jesu, ordained in 2000, was brought to Canada in 2007. He has spent 15 years serving Indigenous parishes here, learning to speak Cree. He is the pastor of Sacred Heart parish.
Reconciliation also involves the hard work of providing pastors for Indigenous parishes at a time when there is a shortage of priests. The OMI brought a pastor from the other side of the world to serve Indigenous people in their own language. How many, say, federal bureaucrats have learned Cree?
The government funds organizations, institutions, commissions and ever-expanding departments to manage Indigenous reconciliation. But bureaucracies set up to manage processes can become perpetuators of those same processes. Both bureaucracies and their clients can develop a dynamic of managing reconciliation processes rather than accomplishing actual reconciliation.
St. Paul teaches that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. The legacy of residential schools makes evident that sinful behaviour in Catholic institutions was all too abounding. Decades of patient, careful and determined work have brought grace to those wounded relationships. What took place on Sunday at Sacred Heart in Edmonton is a more dramatic version of what we see across the country on the local level, where Catholic parishes serve Indigenous communities.
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