Winnipeg is close to saying goodbye to Bishop Grandin. Soon, the streets, and anything else that bears his name, will be erased from Manitoba’s history. 

Indigenous Catholics, along with U.S. and Canadian bishops, are welcoming the Vatican's repudiation of a legal and political doctrine by which European colonial powers and North American governments historically seized lands from Indigenous peoples -- while stressing there is more work to be done in healing Catholic-Indigenous relations.

The Catholic Church formally "repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political 'doctrine of discovery,'" a Vatican statement said.

The $30 million Indigenous Reconciliation Fund has achieved its first-year goal of raising $9.4 million and the fund’s board has greenlit 17 projects.

A presentation to the Regis-St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology Graduate Pro-Seminar by Kyle Ferguson, a second-year PhD student at the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology, on March 1.

Rising from the dead, Our Lord was able to quickly arrange a meeting, and even a fish fry, with the Apostles.

Representatives of the Catholic Church were not present at any meetings or consultations with him, and his initial report did not include any input from the Church, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples said at the end of his 10-day assessment visit to Canada. 

Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people is getting a check-up and Canada’s Catholic bishops want to be part of it. Whether or not they get the chance is still up in the air.

Four letters and 26 promises from Canada’s bishops to Indigenous Canadians set an agenda for reconciliation that bishops like Calgary’s Bishop Bill McGrattan intend to act on before February turns into March.

Canada's Catholics are not done with reconciliation. Four pastoral letters from Canada’s bishops released today urge Indigenous and non-Indigenous Catholics to seek ways to journey together, build relationships, know and understand their history and end the two solitudes in the country and in the Church of Indigenous and settler societies.

Boring, pro-forma, rote recitations of land acknowledgements before every school board meeting, at the start of every school day and at every event just annoy Arriane Chua. 

Calls to Action 59 and 60 in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada implore Church leaders to collaborate with Indigenous spiritual leaders on curriculum to open the eyes of congregations, theology students and seminarians about the Church role in the legacy of residential schools and the necessity of a Church apology.

Catholics are being called to consider how they can achieve reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples and build off the six historic days in July where the Pope visited Canada.

Mere memory is not enough for the year we have just lived. Misty-eyed nostalgia would be a sin. It would fall far short of the mark.

It has been more than four months since the end of Pope Francis’ visit to Canada to meet with Indigenous people and apologize for the Catholic Church’s involvement and acts of terror in the Indian residential school system. It’s long enough for the next steps in the journey of reconciliation to have been at least discussed. Yet, there has been next to nothing.