Whatever else the Holy Father’s summer visit to Canada produced, hard data show he created fertile ground on which the process of Indigenous-non Indigenous reconciliation can ably proceed.

State of distortion

The Catholic Register’s Aug. 21 editorial explains how euphemistically named Medical Aid in Dying is rapidly expanding in Canada.

Ethiopians, especially poor families in the war-devastated parts of the northern Tigray region, have been experiencing immense suffering from a conflict that remains largely unknown to Canadians. War started in the Tigray region in November 2020 between the Ethiopian National Defence Forces and the Tigray Defence Forces, and the conflict continues to this day.

Pope Francis has fulfilled his mission in Canada. He has apologized in Canada “to survivors, their families and communities for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit and Metis children in Catholic-run residential schools.” That was Call to Action 58 in the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Pope did not come here within one year of the report’s release, as the call to action specifies, but he did get here, apologized sincerely several times and met with groups of survivors from the schools.

How would you describe the effect of Pope Francis’ July visit to Canada on your faith? We have waited in anticipation over the past few months for Pope Francis to make his “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada this summer. The Pope decided to prioritize his ministry of caring for those who have been hurt by the Church. He chose to “set his face to go to” (Luke 9: 51) Canada “in the name of Jesus to meet and embrace the Indigenous Peoples.” 

Anti-religious violence doesn’t come out of the blue. Before it explodes, the seeds of mistrust are planted and well-tended.

We need that meeting between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis. It’s a shame the Russian Orthodox Patriarch has backed out at the last minute.

In summer 2021, I had the pleasure on the local public golf course where I play to be part of a foursome of walk-ons that included a diminutive albeit athletic 30-something Asian woman.

Genocidal infection

Time will tell whether Pope Francis’ declaration of “genocide” is an existential threat to the Church. His admission, however, was an “existential” challenge to me. Francis’ penitential pilgrimage forced me to examine those remote, ignored and unacknowledged “reserves” in my soul that nurture the concealed attitudes and forbidden affections that are insidious infections from which “genocide” spreads.

Following Pope Francis’ peripatetic apology this summer, and as the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation looms at September’s end, it’s safe to foresee increases in Indigenous “adaptations” of Catholic liturgy.