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ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH MORALITY AND RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVORS

 Author: Cecelia Lee
May 24th 2016


We all have rights and responsibilities as citizens of Canada. For some of us as members of the Catholic Church we also have particular rights and responsibilities relative to our faith. These include a moral responsibility to own up to and follow through on our obligations to those whom we have wronged.

I recently wrote a blog about people in the trades particularly, who were behaving in a way that suggested they were trying to avoid paying taxes, a responsibility of us all. Now we are hearing of the Catholic Church, or more properly organizations (orders and nuns, priests and brothers) trying to weasel out of paying their negotiated share in recompense for the abuse done to residential school survivors. It appears this has had the effect of lessening the commitments from other Christian denominations. Those commitments were based on the amount promised by the largest offender, the Catholic Church.

Is recompense not a moral responsibility for all of these churches? In terms of the Catholic Church groups, it seems obvious that the individual churches or “entities” (nuns, priests, brothers who ran the residential schools) responsible for the abuse should be the ones expected to pay for the abuse suffered by the residential school survivors. All Catholics are surely, however, involved in the mess by virtue of our shared faith and set of moral values. So if the specific parishes or entities involved in the abuse cannot raise the money, why have we not heard of the church offering suggestions to solve this issue?

Love for God and for our neighbour, as ourselves, is a biblical commandment that all Christian churches, indeed all religions say they adhere to. Does this principle not apply here? Love is not an abstract term here it demands action, restorative action in the case of the damage done to the Indigenous inmates of the schools, as well as their families who have suffered from the fall out effects. Should the Church, that is all of the Roman Catholic community in Canada, not love residential school survivors as it loves itself?

As Catholics we need a vehicle in our local parish churches to allow us to contribute to the healing of the residential school survivors. If there were a concerted effort in this country of Canada, in every Catholic church in this country we could raise the money to live up to our collective obligation. As Catholics we need to own the damage inflicted on the survivors and do whatever it takes to help the aboriginal people affected to heal.

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