I have written several times for Where Peter Is about issues facing Indigenous communities, including regarding the so-called “doctrine of discovery” and, in collaboration with my close friend Meredith Dawson, regarding related problems that emerged during Pope Francis’s visit to...
On Monday, Pope Francis apologized to Indigenous Canadians for the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse of children at residential schools. Many of these schools were operated by the Church and funded by the Canadian government as part of a...
We live in an apology-averse, perhaps even a remorse-averse age. Even churchmen, when accused of severe wrongdoing, are as likely to spin, deny, or counteraccuse as they are to express repentance or seek atonement. That being the case, it is...
Today it was announced that Pope Francis intends to visit Canada, in response to an invitation from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). The statement from the Vatican reads as follows: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has invited...
“And make no mistake, the residential schools were first and foremost Christian.” In this, Declan Leary, the author of a particularly discourse-driving article in the American Conservative, got it right. The Canadian residential schools run by the Catholic Church—which killed...
A few days ago Religion News Service (RNS) ran an article by Jack Jenkins on Douglas Lucia, the Bishop of Syracuse, New York. Lucia has denounced something called the “doctrine of discovery,” and has called on the US bishops to...
On May 27, the CBC reported that the bodies of 215 First Nations children had been discovered buried under the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The school was run by the Catholic religious order the Missionary Oblates...
Nowadays, it is easy to be tempted to turn the page, to say that all these things happened long ago and we should look to the future. For God’s sake, no! We can never move forward without remembering the past;...
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