Toronto Sun, by Warren Kinsella: So, I’m a Catholic.
Irish Catholic, in fact. Every Irish Catholic knows what that means, pretty much. Uncles who were priests, aunts who were nuns, Church every Sunday, the sacraments, all of it.
When they were younger, my four kids came to church with me. Most of my closest friends, like my Sun colleague Brian Lilley, are Catholics too. We talk about it.
Still proud I was taught by Jesuits. Still wear a blessed Joan of Arc medal around my neck. Still went to church when I was in a punk band in Calgary, even, sitting at the back in a biker jacket and wearing a homemade Clash T-shirt.
Still pray every night: Our Father, Hail Mary, Act of Contrition, Glory Be. Every single night. I pray for all of you, even the jerks. (Especially the jerks.)
So I was and am a Catholic. But then I kind of stopped.
The pandemic was part of it, of course. All around the world, churches and synagogues and mosques were forced to close their doors, to prevent the spread of the virus. That was sad, because that was probably the time we all needed them the most.
But if their doors had still been open, I still wouldn’t have gone to Catholic Mass. Because they had kind of broken my heart. And enraged me. And shocked me. And disgusted me.
It was the discovery of those 200 bodies in Kamloops that did it. Children and babies, whose only sin had been to be born indigenous.
And who were stolen from their parents and their families, and taken to prisons — because that’s what they were, really, prisons for children — where they would be beaten and tortured and abused. And sometimes killed.
Thousands of them, dead. And we know that many of them were killed, because they were dropped into unmarked graves, like they were garbage.
Murderers favour unmarked graves. So, apparently, did the Catholic Church.
So I stopped going. Or, at least, stopped believing.
I wasn’t alone. When I wrote about the subject, I heard from many Catholics — friends, family members, total strangers — who had reached the same decision. We had put up with serial stupidities in our church for years. But the residential school genocide? That pushed us out the door.
For me, there was a personal reason, too. My oldest, my daughter, is Indigenous. She is a citizen of a Yukon First Nation. And I love her dearly.
After the revelations came out about what the Catholic Church did at the Canadian residential so-called schools, how could I still be a practicing Catholic, and look my daughter in her beautiful face? How could I be her dad, and still be a Catholic? I didn’t know how to do that.
On Friday, the Pope finally did what long needed to be done: He accepted responsibility. He apologized for what the Catholic Church had done to Indigenous children, the ones from not so long ago. The ones who look very much like like my daughter.
Here is what he said:
“I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart, I am very sorry, and I joined my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon clearly. The content of the faith cannot be transmitted in a way contrary to faith itself.”
“I also feel shame and I’m saying it now … for the role that the number of Catholics, particularly those with educational responsibilities, have had and all these things that wounded you (and) the abuse you suffered, and in the lack of respect shown for your identity and culture.”
Afterword, I talked to my daughter about it. I told her I would be writing this column and that I would be talking about her in it. She said that was OK.
We talked about whether we could go back to Mass. Whether we could feel like we belong to a church that actually practices love, and just doesn’t talk about it.
“Let’s see what the Pope says and does when he comes to Canada,” my daughter said. I agreed with her.
Being a Catholic means being on a journey, not reaching a destination.
Let’s see where the Catholic Church ends up.
Prophetic Link:
“And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.” Revelation 17:4.