In March 2018, Bishop Lionel Gendron, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote an open letter to Indigenous Canadians that “after carefully considering the request (for an apology) and extensive dialogue with the bishops of Canada, he felt that he could not personally respond.” This despite the fact that Pope Benedict penned a letter of apology in 2010 to Irish victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy. And in 2015, Pope Francis issued an apology in Bolivia to Indigenous peoples in the Americas for the “grave sins” of colonialism.
The bishops of Canada reportedly had reservations that the Catholic Church is not a centralized entity, making an apology difficult to provide. According the the website for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops:
“The Catholic community in Canada has a decentralized structure. Each Diocesan Bishop is autonomous in his diocese and, although relating to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, is not responsible to it.
Approximately 16 out of 70 Catholic dioceses in Canada were associated with the former Indian Residential Schools, in addition to about three dozen religious communities. Each diocese and religious community is legally responsible for its own actions. The Catholic Church as a whole was not associated with the Residential Schools, nor was the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
In 1991, Canadian Catholic Bishops had issued a statement that “We are sorry and deeply regret the pain, suffering and alienation that so many experienced” at the Residential Schools. However, this did not acknowledge the role the Church played in promoting that suffering. Clearly its abdication of responsibility now is merely consistent with its failure to protect the Residential School victims as the abuse was occurring.
It seems to also be consistent with the Catholic Church in Canada’s reluctance to accept responsibility and potentially expose itself to litigation and extensive damages. Though one might think that maters such as financial exposure would be secondary to the Church’s desire to be part of the process of healing and reconciliation.
In light of this refusal to apologize NDP MP Charlie Angus tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling on the government to ask the Pope to apologize for the church’s role in the residential school system. It failed to get unanimous consent when a handful of Conservative MPs voted against it.
The rationale for not supporting the motion was articulated by Garnett Genuis:
“It is quite unprecedented that Parliament would tell the Church how to undertake its reconciliation efforts here. I think the bigger question is around separation of church and state…for the Parliament to get into dictating (the Church) in this way, I don’t see that as appropriate.”
It is an interesting and difficult point. It is a fundamental principle of our democracy that there be an absolute separation of church and state. We would not accept any motion or movement that laid the groundwork for a state religion or that in anyway infringed upon the general right for people of all religion’s to practice their faiths without any form of governmental interference. However, historically the Government of Canada and the Catholic Church were complicit in the running of the Residential Schools. There was not much separation then.
Other parties involved in the running of the schools or otherwise complicit in the abuse meted out by the system have apologized including the United Church of Canada, The Anglican Church of Canada, The Presbyterian Church in Canada and the RCMP.
While it is a difficult issue, it does not take an in-depth analysis to understand that the issue is not a religious in nature. It is an issue about legal and moral responsibility. Being a church does not immunize an organization from liabilities arising from the actions of its members whether done at its bequest or not. The church’s involved in running the residential schools had a responsibility to provide oversight to ensure those it had ordained or otherwise to act in the name of the church acted properly and morally. They categorically failed and should accept accountability.
The potential crossing of an imagined boundary between Church and State is a weak argument to not support the motion. Parliament is hardly seeking to tell the Catholic Church or Catholics what to worship or how to practice their faith. Rather Parliament is resolving to act as a body representing the will of all Canadians to have all those responsible for the abuses suffered by Indigenous children to own up. Any point about the lack of separation between church and state raised by this motion is at besta moot point. The motion is simply for Parliament to live up to the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and ask the Pope to apologize.
Perhaps though the Pope’s refusal, which seems to have been guided by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops should be accepted for what it is, a denial of the truth. It seems that an available alternate course for Parliament would be to give leave and support to the all Sovereign First Nations impacted by the Residential School System to seek damages from the Catholic Church and test the bishops’ contention that they are not legally and morally responsible for the wrongs rendered on tens of thousands of our First Nation’s people through our court system.
Let’s remind the Church that in Canada the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Roman Catholic Church is responsible (vicariously liable) for sexual abuse by its Priests in its various dioceses. This includes rulings in 2003 (The Diocese ofSaint George’s, Newfoundland) and in 2009 (St. John’s, Newfoundland). Denial will not help the Church escape its moral and legal responsibilities. Perhaps this is the chosen path for reconciliation with the Church.