Canadian priest Fr. Raymond de Souza (who has written for us over the years) in the National Post is a good guide to Pope Francis’s pilgrimage up north these days. He writes of yesterday:
In regard to the history of Christian missionaries in Canada, which reaches back more than 150 before confederation and residential schools, Pope Francis insisted that “Christian charity was not absent, and there were many outstanding instances of devotion and care for children” on the part of clergy and religious communities.
That there were those who generously served in difficult conditions is not historically in dispute, but Catholic leadership in Canada has been largely silent on this matter, sacrificing the memory of their forebears in the face of opposition today. The Holy Father’s example suggests that they might revisit that approach.
That being noted for the sake of his fellow bishops, Pope Francis was blunt: “The overall effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic. What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” . . .
For Pope Francis, the degradation of Indigenous peoples followed precisely from an abandonment of Gospel values and witness. It is the most devastating indictment that a Christian pastor can deliver. It’s not that politics, or law, or history teaches us that we did wrong, but that we should have seen it first by our lights, or rather by the light of the Gospel.
Pope Francis, even while speaking to political leaders — both Indigenous and otherwise at Maskwacis — remains a pastor whose primary responsibility is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And thus, looking out at the many former residential school students before him, some with their children and grandchildren accompanying them, he spoke to them about the history of salvation, the Christian faith which he shares with a majority of Indigenous Canadians. . . .
Before the burden of history, good intentions and good actions can only do so much. The “open wounds” are sometimes too deep. The necessary healing can be assisted by important gestures — the elderly pope being slowly wheeled to the Ermineskin cemetery and former school site to pray — but it cannot be entirely accomplished by them.
“Our own efforts are not enough to achieve healing and reconciliation,” Pope Francis said. “We need God’s grace.”
The Holy Father brought what he could offer, his words, his presence, his apology. But he pointed toward what Christians — of all times and places — are supposed to bring, an encounter with the grace of the Risen Christ, who alone can bring “to fulfilment the deepest expectations of our hearts.”
His column can be read and shared here.