This is part of a series looking at progress made in healing and reconciliation initiatives between the Archdiocese of Vancouver and Canada’s Indigenous peoples since their first encounter. The B.C. Catholic Editor Paul Schratz looks at apologies from B.C. and Whitehorse bishops.

Vancouver Archbishop Raymond Roussin, SM, called the residential school system “deeply flawed” when in 2008 he made an historic apology on behalf of the Archdiocese of Vancouver.

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Roussin attended a March 5 ecumenical service at the Vancouver School of Theology to promote healing and reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples. With him were Coadjutor Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, (currently Vancouver’s Archbishops) and Bishop Gary Gordon of Whitehorse (now of Victoria), who had been a pastor to the Stó:lo in the Fraser Valley.

Although the Archdiocese of Vancouver never operated a residential school, Roussin attended the event to acknowledge that government/religious schools were run within the historical geographic boundaries of the Archdiocese of Vancouver. 

He said that although the residential schools had “many people who worked selflessly and honourably,” the removal of children from their culture and families was “a profound moral concern. It is especially painful to know that some children suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their teachers and caregivers.”

As Archbishop of Vancouver, he said, “I express my deep regret, and I apologize for any wrongs committed here. In Psalm 107 it states that those who are brought low through oppression, trouble and sorrow will be raised up from their distress and will gladly know of the steadfast love of the Lord, the great Creator. As we move forward, confident that only the truth will set us free and that reconciliation is the path to wholeness, I pray that the good Lord will direct all of us to healing and peace.”

In his remarks, Gordon apologized to those who had suffered from attending the Catholic Lower Post School, which operated in the 1950s and 1960s near the B.C.-Yukon border. He offered particular apologies “for the sexual and physical abuse some of you suffered from some of the staff,” and to “all the students and families who suffered hurt to your culture and human dignity during the Lower Post era in the Diocese of Whitehorse.”

As for those students and families “who found some blessing in their experience at Lower Post,” he said, “I thank God, and I am grateful to those staff who exemplified Christ’s love and care within a flawed education approach.” 

In December 2008, Shirley Leon, who had spent decades helping Canada’s Indigenous people reconcile their desire to celebrate their spiritual heritage with their practice of the Catholic faith, received the Benemerenti medal of honour from Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI.

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Miller spoke of Leon’s “distinguished ministry” on behalf of Native people in the Archdiocese and in Canada. A former member of the Canadian Bishops’ Aboriginal Council for Reconciliation and a long-time member and chairwoman of the Archdiocesan First Nations Council, Leon was “respected as a bridge-builder between cultures” who “worked tirelessly and, even more important, prayerfully, for reconciliation among all parties because of what has happened in our sometimes-painful past,” said Miller.

The papal honour had been announced at a fall meeting of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops as they focused on building relations between the Catholic Church and Canada’s Aboriginal communities.

Leon was one of three Indigenous people awarded the pontifical medal; the other two were Nicole O’Bomsawin from Quebec and Graydon Nicholas from New Brunswick. All three were among the first members named by the CCCB to its Council for Reconciliation, Solidarity and Communion with Aboriginal Peoples launched a decade earlier.

Leon played a consultative role with the bishops on how Indigenous peoples and the Church could build bridges of reconciliation in the aftermath of the acknowledgement of abuses at Church-run residential schools.

Archbishop James Weisgerber, then-president of the CCCB, said one of the major aspects of the history of the evangelization of Canada had been the Church’s partnership with Aboriginal people.

“As part of the story of the Paschal Mystery, it too is a history marked by both glory and tears, deeds of generosity and betrayal, the dawning of new light and continuing shadows of darkness,” he said. “Most of all, it is part of the constant reminder, in the words of St. Paul, that we are to be ambassadors for Christ and witnesses of reconciliation.”

After receiving the pontifical medal, Leon said she had never expected to leave the Okanagan Reserve where she was born, let alone be honoured in such a significant way by the Church. In an interview with The B.C. Catholic, Leon spoke about the healing in Indigenous communities that had to take place at the community level.

“We are dealing with the aftermath of a pathological grief — the result of losses we have had in the past and continue to suffer through the high number of deaths of our young people today due to the abuse of alcohol and other substances.”

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Grassroots resources were needed in the form of community-based programs that could be managed without large government-imposed infrastructures, she said.

Responding to criticism that there has not been enough atonement for abuses in the residential schools, Leon said, “We cannot change the past, so we should start right here and now, today. Life is too short to live it in anger and pain.”