Conflict and Courage

 

 

Comments and Considerations

        

           by Kenneth Bagnell

 

      It may well be that the most disastrous social project in Canada’s history was the residential school concept so many years ago, in which tens of thousands of native children were more brutalized than educated. Please take note of this sentence: hundreds, maybe thousands, of native children have grown to attain personal and professional wellbeing, and are in the business and professional world from medicine to law, education and business. (I’ve flown in corporate planes piloted by native achievers.)  That said tens of thousands more were wounded to such degrees that, over the years, theyy can’t adapt to the working world and maybe never will. They’re often children of parents who were impaired by teachers who were often dreadfully rough and ill-prepared in both educational methods and human relationship, They knew little of social issues that good teachers always include.

       In brief, the schools, about 130 by the middle of the 20^th century, were called “residential” because they were boarding institutions, thereby exposing the children not just to excessive classroom discipline but a form of oversight that was the equivalent of what we used to call “reform school.” They were mostly overseen by a management that believed in the crude philosophy we once put in the words: “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Only God can know how much this has been passed on to today’s native culture, one in which so many children are tragically taking their own lives. Why? Can it be simply what some have believed for many decades, that native people simply cannot adjust to the way of life based on the so called “wage-economy.”

       The churches are, in my opinion, maybe justifiably responsible for what went on in the long gone residential schools but also with good reason, done what they can in  financial obligation to help the native community in the wake of all this. One example must suffice but it represents a wide effort of Canadians to rectify a wrong. An Anglican friend, Leroy Peach, a Cape Bretoner, (and my schoolmate long ago) was deeply involved in the effort to compensate a wrong, as other denominations did. He and other Anglicans got together so that The Diocese of Nova Scotia, led in a fundraising campaign in light of what had happened.  They held a fundraising service with a special evening service in which a native person was speaker. The speaker told a story Leroy never forgot:  “He told us that he was taken from his family at the age of seven. His mother made for him a beautiful beaded jacket. When he arrived at the residential school, the first thing that happened to him was the jacket was taken from him. He never saw it again.” That tells a lot. (Nova Scotian Anglicans gave very generously, two million dollars, and their national church $25 million.)

      The crisis is not over. A very recent edition of The Globe& Mail contained this paragraph on its front page: “More than 50 Catholic organizations that ran many of the schools… were required under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to pay $29 million in cash and to provide $25 million ‘in kind’ services. Those obligations have been met.” Such enormous financial obligations, in other forms, have been met by the major Protestant denominations. But, if there’s more of the same to come, and the government tries to get still deeper into church funds, denominations already struggling to stay alive, may be driven to the possibility of closure.     

      Yet, as I write, I see the foreboding front page headline of The Globe and Mail:  “Ottawa to press church groups to meet settlement obligations.” I read the piece twice and can’t see any reason for the “s” on the word group. Why? Because the article is about one faith group, sad to say, the Roman Catholic. The fact is that the Catholic Church has already put its best effort into a campaign to raise $25 million through fundraising among its people. For a variety of reasons the objective wasn’t reached. One major reason is that the Canadian Catholic church is, like others, suffering significant decline. One example suffices: in my home area Cape Breton, which is part of the Antigonish Diocese.

     Recently, the Diocese launched a study to determine the number of churches it could close, the decline partly due to aged members, and sad to say, the priestly scandals. The diocese has varied and deep troubles: starkly aging if not dying membership; residents moving away to jobs often in Alberta; its tragic loss of funds because of heartbreaking scandals; and then these sometimes poverty stricken Catholics who had to come up with (get ready) $15 million dollars to pay local victims of priestly abuse. (To make things even worse, the small diocese had to borrow $6.5 million from lending organizations just to make the actual payout to the abused children and their families.)

     Beyond all that the overall Canadian Catholic Church is facing, like others of course, declining membership. It went into its first recorded decline between 2001 and 2011. This was spurred on by the decline of Catholicism in Quebec, which has become mostly a quite secular culture. Sorry, but no church funding from secularists!  Moreover immigration hasn’t helped. So it goes. Given that cultural stress, it disturbs me a bit – and you know I’m not a Catholic – to see my own MP, Dr. Carolyn Bennett whom I support, say with a ring of authority: “I think we want to explain to the Catholic Church that we’re serious about them honoring this obligation and we will apply deeper pressure.” I wonder if Dr. Bennett realizes the apparent truth of what appeared some years ago in The Washington Post: “Officials of the Catholic Church in Canada, which has faced 10 lawsuits, say their 30 percent share of the proposed settlement package could force them into bankruptcy.” Maybe that’s why the church vacillates.

       Still I do recognize the need. Honestly. In the past, I’ve been to communities of aboriginal people in the company of very senior business leaders who happened also be faithful Christians with social justice inclination. Most of them over the years have tried and tried again, as they could, by providing jobs. That’s their thinking. Of course if native people indirectly got work with them, they had to show up; of course they would also be required to be on time; and of course they’d have to be dependable. And they mean it. These men whom I accompanied -– most now passed away — believed that was the best way to help native people to healthy, adequate maybe prosperous and fulfilling lives. These men, as myself, wanted to see them become self-sustaining. Sometimes it worked.  That’s about all I can say. But I continue to believe that it is business men and women with social conscience who have both the challenge and the solution to Canada’s most profound and enduring human tragedy.

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