Heartbroken

Somebody REALLY missed the memo. Pope Francis' visit is about seeking reconciliation and healing with Indigenous Peoples. It's not meant to be a show of clericalism the likes of which we haven't seen since I was born. I was there as a volunteer, in hopes of helping to facilitate reconciliation, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. What the **** was that?

If the Canadian Catholic Church really wants to build a relationship that moves toward healing and hope, it would give First Nations People, especially homeless ones, the seats of honour. It would put away the Latin (!) and communicate and pray with them in languages they understand. 

A reconciling Church would try to understand the complexities of family relationships among Indigenous families suffering from intergenerational trauma, rather than offering a homily on happy grandparents and grandchildren, especially since the Church was part of destroying those relationships. It would admit its complicity in helping to create a society that is particularly unjust toward First Nations.

And it would allow all Indigenous people to come to the table where Christ is shared, no restrictions, so that they can feel like the most honoured of guests.

This week isn't about upholding theological tenets or impressing the Pope. It's about really connecting with and listening to the ones he's come to meet on their lands.

Bishops of Canada, you have so much to learn about reconciliation.

I am more than a little angry, and heartbroken with the way you're doing things, but my feelings don't matter. Theirs do. I wonder what they are thinking and feeling after what happened this morning.

Enough with the ecclesial poop (I use the word intentionally) and circumstance. Let the Pope meet Indigenous Peoples on common ground, and really listen. And really allow all the truth to come out, and create possibilities and programs for healing.

Everyone else, get out of the way.

A new neighbour shows up

Pope Francis arrives in his Fiat

He's just a few blocks from here. His cortege arrived yesterday at about 1 p.m., a long line of about two dozen vehicles -- suburbans, Prestige sprinter vans, and two ambulances -- surrounding his little white fiat with the papal flag. 

For three days before he arrived, we heard a couple dozen RCMP and Edmonton Police on motor bikes practicing their motorcade skills, sirens blaring. I actually called the Catholic Pastoral Centre and suggested that Pope Francis probably didn't want to sound like a fifteen-alarm fire.

This morning my mom and I watched from her front window as he and his cortege left for Maskwacis to begin his "pilgrimage of penance" among Indigenous People here. Then I went home and watched the ceremonies online, beginning with a time of prayer at the Ermineskin Cemetery, and a simple apology to the residential school survivors gathered there. The emotion reflected in the faces of the elders listening to the Pope's speech made me cry.

His presence here on Turtle Island (North America) is a continuation of the fulfillment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action #58, asking for the Pope to apologize for the Church's complicity in the devastation caused by Residential Schools. But as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald, said, apologies are only as good as the actions that follow.

Still, we can be hopeful that, as this week's papal visit progresses, Pope Francis will speak more and more boldly about the steps the Catholic Church must take to make amends for centuries of injustices. It was the Church's Papal Bulls that led to Terra Nullius, the belief that non-European lands were empty and available for exploitation, allowing for the colonization of Indigenous lands and the subjugation of peoples and their cultures not just in Canada, but around the globe. 

If Pope Francis can open the Vatican Records related to the experience of Indigenous peoples and clearly admit to centuries of church disrespect, neglect, and injustice toward them, he will, in my books, live up to the radical example of the humble little saint from which he takes his papal name. Even better would be if he would liquidate some of the Church's many financial assets to actually finance programs that help suffering Indigenous people to heal physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. 

St. Francis of Assisi stood up against all forms of violence in his day -- he understood that all of creation is beloved of God, and he walked away from wealth and prestige to stand with the people of his time who were ignored by those who held power.

Dear neighbour for three days, Pope Francis, please do what is most needed. There are so many praying for you. Indigenous people and me included.

Waiting for as long as it takes

I don't know who put this on the fence that surrounds the grounds of St. Joseph Seminary/Newman Theological College/Offices of the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton, but I thank them for their efforts. When I stopped to take this picture, another woman pulled up in her car, and we stood there, two strangers crying together. 

These little pink moccasins are likely a bit small for the Residential School children whose unmarked graves are in the news so much these days... but they can also represent the many little ones of all ages who have been lost in the years of the Sixties Scoop, and through all the intergenerational trauma that resulted from the last 200+ years of racist policies in Canada. 100% of our Indigenous community members have been living with that trauma.

All the Catholics I speak with can't understand why the Pope still hasn't apologized for the horrors inflicted by Catholic Residential Schools in Canada. Is it because he would then have to make apologies to Indigenous communities the world over? Well then, Pope Francis and patriarchy, get on with it. Those who are so deeply wounded certainly deserve more than an apology. How about some restorative justice work, too?

In the meantime, I want to sit with the survivors, listen to their pain, and wait for as long as it takes. 

P.S. If you're from elsewhere and don't know what I'm talking about, some of the school survivors told their stories in The Survivors Speak, a report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which can be accessed by clicking here.