‘The time for the Catholic Church to take responsibility’ | Children’s Rights News

Warning: The story below contains details of child abuse

Montreal, Canada – Gerry Shingoose went to give a message.

The 63-year-old woman had to wait more than 10 hours on Friday to meet with Archbishop Richard Gagnon at St Mary’s Cathedral in Winnipeg, central Canada.

Along with the survivors of the residential schools, he previously placed 215 orange ribbons on the doorway of the Catholic church. 215 native children whose remains were found in the former Kamloops Indian Residence School British Columbia.

Shingoose said he was willing to wait all night, however, to make a request to the Catholic Church: assume horrible abuse committed against Indigenous children for decades in Canadian residential schools in Canada.

“I told him it was the right time to accept the Catholic Church and take responsibility and accountability,” Shingoose, a nine-year-old resident of the Saskatchewan provincial residential school, told Al Jazeera.

“I am seeking justice for 215 children and as yet undiscovered children. I am seeking justice for the survivors of residential schools, ”he said in a telephone interview. “Since we were living in a boarding school, we shared our stories over and over again – and the Catholic Church never acknowledged or accepted what they did to us at school.”

Kamloops discovery

Shingoose’s meeting came more than a week after Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said he covered the remains Of the 215 Indigenous children, a search of radar was carried out on the ground floor of the Kamloops residential school. Some children were three years old.

The discovery was caused in the western province of Canada renewed pain and trauma for indigenous people across the country, especially those who have survived residential schools, their families, and their communities.

They are also the Catholic Church that governed the Government of Canada and most of the schools facing the mounting pressure recognizing the full extent of crimes committed in institutions, helping First Nations to find other massive burial sites, and paying for reparations.

Between the 1870s and 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children were forcibly separated from their families and forced to attend residential schools, which aimed to take over Canadian society.

They were organizations full of abuse and more than 4,000 children are believed to have died there, mostly from disease, which has spread rapidly in overcrowded and unsafe buildings.

Indigenous community leaders have said there is no doubt about it there are more unmarked graves.

UN experts also on Friday called on Canada and the Catholic Church to conduct “rapid and in-depth” investigations into the deaths, including a forensic examination of the remains and work to identify and record missing children.

“The judiciary should conduct criminal investigations into suspicious deaths and allegations of torture and sexual violence against children in residential schools, and prosecute and punish perpetrators and perpetrators who may still be alive.” he said.

“Horrible abuse”

Shingoose, a member of the Tootinaowaziibeeng Treaty Reserve Bear Clan, attended Muscowequan Residential School in neighboring Saskatchewan in western Manitoba from 1962 to 1971. Muscowequan First Nation recently identified at least 35 pits at that CTV News residential school. reportedand leaders believe there may be more to the site.

“I experienced horrific abuse at school for nine years: emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually,” Shingoose said, and told Al Jazeera that he wants to apologize to Pope Francis and see charges against abuse and against the Catholic Church. public release of all records about residential schools.

Gagnon, Archbishop of Winnipeg, is also the President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Canada. he said in a statement dated May 31, “the latest discovery [in Kamloops] it’s moving. “

“It rekindles trauma in many communities on this earth. Honoring the dignity of the lost little ones requires revealing the truth,” he said. The statement did not provide an apology or confession for the role of abuse in residential schools by the church.

Shingoose said he did not listen or feel taken seriously by the meeting with the archbishop. “He almost gave it a try,” he said. “He didn’t mean anything. I didn’t feel a real feeling or a heart. “

No apologies

Over the years, Indigenous people have applied to churches that run residential schools in Canada under the auspices of the federal government to recognize their role in the systemic abuse that has taken place. But while other Christian denominations have apologized in recent decades, the leadership of the Catholic Church has not.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), which concluded in 2015 that the residential school system was a “cultural genocide,” asked the Pope to publicly apologize to survivors, their families and their communities on Canadian soil.

In 2018, then formal request From Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Church said Pope Francis would not comply with that request. Trudeau then said he was “disappointed” with the decision, but promised to continue to apologize to the pope. Trudeau he repeated that was on Friday, again asking the church to apologize and publish all records related to the schools.

Sunday, Pope Francis he expressed “pain” in the discovery At Kamloops, but again he hadn’t long since apologized.

People join a memorial in front of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, BC, on May 31 [Dennis Owen/Reuters]

Kathleen Mahoney, a law professor at the University of Calgary, told Al Jazeera that the Canadian government and church should work with First Nations to find other massive burials across the country, reviewing their records, and facilitating searches.

“Churches have perfect records, we know that. The Catholic Church kept the perfect records – what they could find for lunch in 1918, if you look at the nuns’ diaries … The Catholic Church has not yet delivered all its records, and that is the problem. “

The Oblate of the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate ran the Kamloops residential school. tell The Canadian Press news agency has made a “commitment to do more” this week to make its records available. “We will work to draw together the daily life records of the Oblate communities known as Codex Historicus and make them available in a more accessible format,” the order says.

‘True history’

Trudeau and several federal government ministers have said in recent days that they remain committed to supporting indigenous communities in the search for missing children. Ottawa also said the 2019 budget provided $ 28 million (C $ 33.8 million) over three years to address calls for action on deaths in TRC schools.

But the government has also responded to the calls take real action addressing the heritage of residential schools, including ongoing discrimination against Indigenous children in Canada – and establishing Calls for Action.

So far, only eight of the 94 recommendations given by the TRC five years ago have been completed, after long hearings shared by survivors of residential schools, according to the Yellowhead Institute, a First Nations-led research center.

Meanwhile, when he returned to Winnipeg, Shingoose said he would continue to advocate for survivors of other residential schools, as well as for all children who never got home.

Here, the Cathedral of St. Mary, waiting for Archbishop WPG Gagnon. RESIDENTS They are seeking justice. Then Carey Price, the Canadian from Montreal stops to talk to me about Gramma Shingoose. He was given a tobacco tie and orange ribbon pic.twitter.com/9baVO9Xjs5

– Gramma Shingoose (@LeeShingoose) June 4, 2021

“Young children buried in schools, at school, have no voice, so I live in a living room and bring a voice to them,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that he also shares his truth for his three children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

“Canada needs to know that truth. They need to know our true history and what happened to indigenous children in these residential schools. ”

The Canadian Indian School of Living and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.