Church in Canada pledges funds for healing, reconciliation after residential schools

Christine Rousselle By Christine Rousselle for CNA

September 27, 2021 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

The former Kamloops Indian Residential School / Bruce Raynor/Shutterstock

Ottawa, Canada, Sep 27, 2021 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

The Canadian bishops are aiming to raise $30 million (USD 23.8m) over the next five years to support the Indigenous peoples of the country, including survivors of residential schools.

“The Bishops of Canada, as a tangible expression of their commitment to walk with the Indigenous Peoples of this land along the pathway of hope, are making a nation-wide collective financial commitment to support healing and reconciliation initiatives for residential school survivors, their families, and their communities,” the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced in a Sept. 27 statement.

The bishops will launch fundraising initiatives throughout the country, to be “achieved at the local level, with parishes across Canada being encouraged to participate and amplify the effort.”

The announcement comes days after the Canadian bishops concluded their plenary assembly. At the conclusion of the assembly Sept. 24, the bishops issued an apology for the Church’s role in the country’s residential school system.

Bishop Raymond Poisson of Saint-Jerome and Mont-Laurier, who was recently elected president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that there was a “universal consensus” among his brother bishops that “Catholic entities needed to do more in a tangible way to address the suffering experienced in Canada’s residential schools.”

“Comprised of local diocesan initiatives, this effort will help support programs and initiatives dedicated to improving the lives of residential school survivors and their communities, ensuring resources needed to assist in the path of healing,” said Bishop Poisson.

Per the CCCB’s statement, the projects will be funded on a local level, with input from area First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. The individual initiatives will be developed and announced by November 2021.

Bishop Poisson said that he hopes that the initiatives result in a “significant difference” in confronting the “historical and ongoing trauma” wrought by the residential school system.

Bishop William McGrattan of Calgary, vice president of the CCCB, emphasized the importance of working with the Indigenous population on deciding how and when to move forward with these efforts.

“The Bishops of Canada have been guided by the principle that we should not speak about Indigenous People without speaking with them,” said Bishop McGrattan.

“To that end, the ongoing conversations with local leadership will be instrumental in discerning the programs that are most deserving of support. There is no single step that can eliminate the pain felt by residential school survivors, but by listening, seeking relationships, and working collaboratively where we are able, we hope to learn how to walk together in a new path of hope.”

The residential school system was set up by the Canadian government, beginning in the 1870s, as a means of forcibly assimilating Indigenous children and stripping them of familial and cultural ties. Catholics and members of ecclesial communities ran the schools, although the Catholic Church or Catholics oversaw more than two-thirds of the schools.

The last remaining federally-run residential school closed in 1996.

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How will palliative care fare in Canada?

November 16, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Edmonton, Canada, Nov 16, 2018 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A member for Canadian Physicians for Life says requiring provision of assisted suicide by Catholic hospitals and by hospices will have disastrous results for palliative care throughout the country.

Karol Boschung, a second year medical student at University of British Columbia, wrote an opinion piece in the Edmonton Journal Nov. 15 expressing concern for the effects of forcing out Catholic healthcare providers.

“Bullying Catholic health-care providers into compliance will not result in expanded access to medical care for all Canadians. If forced to perform procedures which compromise its morals, the Catholic Church may be pressed into withdrawing from the administration of organizations like Covenant Health,” she said.

Covenant Health is one of the major health care administers for Alberta, she said, noting the Catholic health service provides over one-third of palliative-care beds for this province.

According to Covenant Health’s figures in 2008, the organization had more than 8,800 staff across 11 sites. The report states that the budget for 2008 was $514 million, which helped served more than 2,300 beds.

“What might happen to these beds if the government found itself on the hook for purchasing these facilities?” she asked.

“Indeed, attempting to push the Catholic Church out of the administration of Covenant Health would reduce, not improve, access to palliative care and other essential services.”

Boschung spoke on the recent media attention around Doreen Nowicki, who had ALS and committed physician-assisted suicide in 2017. On Covenant Health property, Nowicki had been denied access to the exams to determine the patient’s eligibility for assisted suicide

While sympathizing with the struggle of ALS, Boschung said assisted suicide is not an intrinsic human right as argued by the ethicist Arthur Schafer, who supported Nowicki in a story last month by the CBC.

“We are talking about a fundamental human right, not a privilege to be bestowed at the discretion of a Catholic or religious bureaucrat,” Schafer told the CBC, noting that Covenant’s position was morally inexcusable.

Boschung said that since assisted suicide was decriminalized by the Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter v Canada decision in 2015, assisted suicide “has gone from a criminal offence to a broadly-accepted practice — even a ‘fundamental human right,’ even though legally it is nothing of the sort.”

She added that pressure to provide assisted suicide has affected not only Catholic organizations.

“For example, the Delta Hospice Society, a secular hospice in B.C., was embroiled in controversy earlier this year when the local health authority attempted to bully them into making physician-assisted suicide available on their premises, despite strenuous objections by hospice founders and operators.”

“The operators correctly maintained that PAS was incompatible with the philosophy of hospice palliative care, and that to force them to provide this service was incompatible with the mission of the hospice itself,” Boschung wrote.

Boschung said enforcing PAS is a shorted-sighted solution – a move which will reduce palliative care to ensure the availability of assisted suicide.

“If we really care about the sick and dying, the last thing we need is an approach that leads to a reduction in the availability and diversity of end-of-life care,” she said.

“To push for such an outcome would be a triumph of ideology over practicality.”

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