Pietro Parolin

Forgive me for regarding with a somewhat dry eye my fellow Canadians’ umbrage gusting to apoplexy over the infamy of Indian Residential Schools, and Catholic blame for same.

“Education got us into this; education will get us out of this.” Though those words were first spoken and repeated often by Truth and Reconciliation Commission chair Sen. Murray Sinclair, they’ve become the personal motto of St. Mary’s University Elder in Residence Casey Eagle Speaker.

‘Bowdlerized’ reality

The horrific news of the residential schools grave sites created such an avalanche of rancour against the Catholic Church that factual information was either deliberately ignored or distorted. 

There will be more … more unmarked graves, more grief, more anger, more shame.

At the start of the pandemic, retired surgeon Dr. Frank Browne got up at 5 a.m. ready to head into the hospital to tend to the sick. He had heard the call to retired doctors to assist as COVID-19 was taking its toll on the health-care system.

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame at 25: ‘The Most R-Rated G You Will Ever See.’ ”

In the wake of the Cowessess discovery of up to 751 unmarked graves, Western Canada’s Oblate missionary order is embracing a new level of transparency, making more documents about daily operations at the order’s 48 residential schools across Canada available.

During a shared reflection on a scriptural text one evening, a young man asked about joy. Was something wrong with him because he rarely experienced joy? Was he being punished for his mental suffering? What is joy, and do we even have any right to feel it when there is so much suffering?

OTTAWA -- There is no guarantee that a delegation to the Vatican will lead to a papal apology for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential school system but the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations is praying it will.

We ought to be feeling pretty good about ourselves.