The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is organizing the visit to the country of Pope Francis, who is expected to apologize for the role of the Church in residential schools for Aboriginal people, is soliciting donations from those who hope to see him.
According to RoseAnne Archibald, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, people who want to reserve places for these events on the Ticketmaster site have told her that they have been asked to donate money to a well-registered charity. accurate.
This charitable organization is the corporate name of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In a recent letter to the Archbishop of Edmonton, Richard Smith, Ms Archibald expressed concern, calling the solicitation “inappropriate”.
Chief Archibald recalls that First Nations people and their communities face trauma inflicted on them by federal residential schools run precisely by the Catholic Church.
“As First Nations, we are all survivors of intergenerational trauma, and we collectively mourn the pain and suffering that Catholic institutions of assimilation and genocide have perpetrated,” she writes.
A spokeswoman for organizers of the papal visit said these donations are a way for Canadians and Catholics to contribute to the costs and that these donations are entirely optional. “No funds raised in this way will be used for other initiatives or programs of the Church,” it says.
Organizers added that unlike other papal visits, there is no admission fee for its events.
” This is not the moment “
It is estimated that approximately 60% of federal Indian residential schools in Canada were run by members of the Catholic Church. Over 150,000 indigenous children were forced to attend these facilities, where thousands suffered physical and sexual abuse, as well as malnutrition and neglect.
Pope Francis was asked to come to Canada and apologize for the Church’s role in running these residential schools. These apologies on Canadian soil were part of the 94 “calls to action” contained in 2015 in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which had collected the testimonies of thousands of survivors of federal residential schools.
Ms Archibald argues that the primary purpose of the papal visit is to focus on reconciliation. Now is not the time, she said, “to promote the church’s fundraising efforts.”
She added that it was “particularly hurtful to ask First Nations survivors, who are already owed Church reparations, to donate.”
Survivors have already expressed disappointment at the Catholic Church’s inability to meet the fundraising goal it committed to under the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
In 2006, 48 Catholic entities had agreed to deploy “their best efforts” to raise $25 million as part of the compensation program for residential school survivors. In 2015, a court ruled that the Catholic companies could be released from their remaining financial obligations after the fundraising campaign totaled less than $4 million, despite “best efforts”.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which claims not to be one of the signatory parties to the residential schools agreement, has since renewed its financial commitment.
Last September, the bishops pledged $30 million over five years for initiatives related to reconciliation. They said 73 dioceses would contribute to the goal, each pledging their own amount.
In the interests of transparency, the bishops then created the Indigenous Reconciliation Fund, registered as a public foundation and overseen by an Indigenous board. To date, the dioceses have invested $4.6 million in this fund.
The Canadian bishops have said collecting donations for the papal visit is separate from collection efforts for the Reconciliation Fund.