Often when a particular friend of mine says certain things, I don’t react right away. In fact, it might require days. Or impose a prudent pause until the 12th of Never.

It would be a long journey, which I suspected would end badly. The American border had been closed for almost two years due to the pandemic, when the Bride decided she was going home to visit her mother.

Catholic Register columnist Glen Argan failed. To his credit he admitted it. After writing a gravely inaccurate column on the residential schools issue, he corrected the facts in his next one.

Address crimes

The consequences of crimes committed to Indigenous people in Canada, the first owners of land, lakes and rivers, over the last century, must be addressed to all Canadian institutions that were involved in the crimes by being deaf, dumb and blind on the crimes committed, or encouraged the crimes, then, each of them to be charged for the full damage it has done, and Canada to ensure that the crimes committed will never repeat again.

It’s full throttle on the Christmas shopping season now and even a pandemic isn’t about to put the brakes on people rushing to line up outside stores by buy gifts.

I’ve had the luxury of having a voice over the past 40 years. It’s a privilege to have had my words read. I hope at times those words have moved readers and perhaps moved them enough to act or at least think more deeply about the important issues of our times.

There is a freedom in walking the streets, following my instincts and seeing where the Spirit will lead. On this particular evening I was unexpectedly led back 14 years to a cold evening on Jan. 11, 2007, but I was taken there by a circuitous route.

Last year Pope Francis delivered his traditional Christmas message from the Hall of Benediction of St. Peter’s Basilica, rather than from the usual window where popes more traditionally appear before tens of thousands of the faithful. Just as his place of delivery reflected the grim reality of COVID, so too did his message focus on the responsibilities we — and the wealthier nations especially — have towards those in need.

Omar El Akkad begins his novel, What Strange Paradise, with this sentence: “The child lies on the shore.” That beginning calls to mind the photo of the dead three-year-old refugee Alan Kurdi whose body was washed ashore on a Mediterranean island in September 2015. The photo sparked heightened global concern for Syrian refugees and an upsurge in donations to help migrants and refugees.

Truth exposed

We take pride in our belief that we are a welcoming and inclusive society. If we examine our language deeper we are faced with the truth that we are not. We were not welcoming or inclusive to the people who are here already before we arrived. The phrase “we are a nation of immigrants” exposes the exclusion of the Indigenous people. The phrase summarized why we are in this tender spot. Their being out of our consciousness resulted in their being out of our society.