Something to Think About as August Embraces Us

Pope Francis has flown back to Rome after several stops in our country meeting with Indigenous groups and addressing the recommendation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the Pope apologize on Canadian soil for the sins of the residential school system. His church was one of the contractors for implementing the Canadian government’s program of what’s now defined as cultural genocide.

Public analysis has largely defined the events as an “Apology Tour”, which is very different than a “Please Forgive” tour. We see apologies all the time by public figures expressing well-crafted thoughts that don’t create liability or responsibility but do create cynicism – at least in this old codger.

In many of his statements Francis used the word forgiveness (see below), including God’s forgiveness as well as the forgiveness of those victimized by the residential schools run by his people. There were many questions raised about these requests for forgiveness by media, politicians, and some Indigenous leaders – the most ironic coming from our own Prime Minister whose predecessors created and sustained the program on our behalf and who still hasn’t engaged in real sustained help for the those who have been wounded by the program - to our continuing shame as citizens.

The challenge I face in all of this is that responding to a request for forgiveness is fully in the hands of those being asked – it’s not a game show with score cards. The large institution of the Roman Catholic church has been slow to get to this point and there are plenty of reasons to question how much self-protection is involved in any action the leadership takes. Our own governments have been either negligent or passive in carrying their own apologies forward into practical restitution – part of the problem with all this is that large institutions aren’t capable of truly engaging us as human beings at the level where forgiveness can be offered and granted between perpetrators and victims.

 At the core of our faith is the truth that God became one of us and experienced unconditionally what it is to be human in all our vulnerability and suffering. True engagement must happen at that deep level for the forgiveness exemplified by the cross to make any sense in a restorative situation.

I only hope that amid the media and commentariat swirl some quiet moments of forgiveness requested and accepted happened. If not, perhaps it began a conversation where those injured could say they desire to forgive but need more conversation or time for that to happen.

We all need to be forgiven and we all need to receive forgiveness at many points in our lives. Our Lord teaches us to pray for our own forgiveness on the same terms as we have been forgiven – generously and unconditionally.

I have often said that reading the Truth and Reconciliation Report was a life challenging and hopefully life changing experience for me. It also frustrated me because it felt more like “Truth and Restitution” rather than reconciliation because it was largely directed at large institutions and governments. Our society needs a heavy dose of the understanding of forgiveness that doesn’t avoid responsibility but truly leads to reconciliation among the forgiven and forgiving – and responsibility then can be taken for restoration and restitution as responsibility requires.

We all know how difficult it is for us to either ask for or offer forgiveness – sometimes given too easily only deepens the wounds. But there is freedom in forgiveness both for the one forgiving and the one receiving. It is hard good work that restores us to relationship with one another and with the One who created us and calls us by name. 

Yours needing forgiveness,

Norm

Excerpts from Francis’ Speeches

I have been waiting to come here and be with you. Here, from this place associated with painful memories, I would like to begin what I consider a penitential pilgrimage. I have come to your native lands to tell you in person of my sorrow, to implore God's forgiveness, healing and reconciliation, to express my closeness and to pray with you and for you.

…. I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry. Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous Peoples.

I am sorry. I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities co-operated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.  (From Francis’ first speech in Alberta)

"This only renewed in me the indignation and shame that I have felt for months, I want to tell you how very sorry I am and to ask for forgiveness for the evil perpetrated by not a few Catholics who contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation and enfranchisement in those schools."  (From Francis’ last speech in Nunavut) 

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