‘I’ll just have to keep doing what legions of other folks like me do: Sigh and vote Liberal.’ Stephen Harper endorses Pierre Poilievre, plus other letters to the editor for July 27
: Pope Francis’s penitential pilgrimage to Canada’s Indigenous communities is both historic and potentially healing. He acknowledged that begging pardon can only represent the beginning of reconciliation and, “for my part, I will continue to encourage efforts of all Catholics to support the Indigenous peoples.”
One meaningful act within the Pope’s control would be to redirect some of the Vatican’s vast resources, much of it derived over centuries from colonial lands such as Canada, into providing scholarships to Indigenous youth and infrastructure to deliver safe drinking water to all First Nations, which our federal government has been unable to do.I listened to parts of the Pope’s speech and, if I’m honest, I struggled with it.
I know there is deep power – after waiting for generations – in hearing the trauma of Indigenous peoples publicly named and acknowledged. There is no doubt great healing to be found in receiving an apology from the figurehead of the religious institution largely responsible for it. But as an outside observer whose heart aches over these atrocities, the Pope’s speech felt anemic, performative and inadequate.
Just as faith without works is dead, truth without reconciliation is missing its healing power. Healing requires more than a performance. It requires action that changes the story for future generations.Read and construed carefully, I believe the Pope’s speech indeed offers an institutional apology from the Catholic Church.
Focus has been on the reference to indiscretions of “members” of the church and conclusions that the apology was limited to individual miscreants. Shortly after that reference, however, the Pope said these profoundly important words, in the immediate context of the abject admissions of wrong and apology that preceded them: “In the face of this deplorable evil, the Church kneels before God and implores his forgiveness for the sins of her children.
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