Voices September 07, 2023
Indigenous reconciliation became a focus of Archbishop’s episcopate
By Paul Schratz
Archbishop Adam Exner became Archbishop of Vancouver at a timely moment as far as Indigenous reconciliation goes, one that would help shape his episcopate.
His installation as archbishop on Aug. 15, 1991, took place just weeks after his Oblate congregation made an apology to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada at the Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, Native pilgrimage.
Father Douglas Crosby, OMI, president of the Oblate Conference of Canada, offered the apology on July 24, 1991, to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada “for aspects of [Oblate] presence and ministry” over 150 years.
He said: “Recognizing that within every sincere apology there is implicit the promise of conversion to a new way of acting[;] We, the Oblates of Canada, wish to pledge ourselves to a renewed relationship with the Native peoples which ... seeks to move beyond past mistakes to a new level of respect and mutuality.”
Archbishop Exner’s respect for Indigenous people was already well known in Kamloops where as Bishop he had made First Nations relationships a priority. Before the end of his first year in Vancouver, he made his order’s apology more than words, reaching out to Aboriginal peoples to forge a new relationship and making reconciliation with a particular focus of his episcopacy.
From 1992 to 1995, Archbishop Exner sat as a member of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops Working Group on Residential Schools from 1992 to 1995.
He responded to an invitation from the Vancouver First Nations Committee, a group composed of Natives, clergy, and lay Catholics, by proposing a Native Pastoral Council. In 1991 the group became the Archdiocese of Vancouver First Nations Council, intended to “address the needs of all Catholic Natives, with a focus on inclusion, fostering leadership and healing.”
Among the council’s accomplishments was its work with the committee that organized the annual pilgrimage to the historic Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes on the grounds of St. Mary’s Mission.
Priests and parishioners of St. Joseph’s in Mission and Aboriginal peoples had made pilgrimages to the grotto site every August until the 1960s when the building fell into disrepair. The Knights of Columbus and the Mission Heritage Association had worked from the 1980s to reconstruct the grotto, which was originally built in 1892. Archbishop Exner wanted to see greater Native participation in the liturgy at the annual Marian pilgrimage, and when the grotto reconstruction was completed in 1997, 4,000 people, Aboriginal people and newcomers, met and prayed together. The Prayers of the Faithful were spoken in Native languages as well as English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Filipino. To this day the pilgrimage is the largest annual event in the Archdiocese.
Archbishop Exner met with representatives of the Squamish, Stó:lo, Sliammon, Sechelt, Stl’alt’imx, and Thompson every two months, and in 1992 the council sponsored three healing conferences, in the Fraser Valley, on the Sunshine Coast, and in Vancouver. In subsequent years the council sponsored a conference on reawakening of Native spirituality and meetings with the Cursillo movement.
In November 1998 faith leaders in British Columbia, including Archbishop Adam Exner, signed a statement supporting in principle the Nisga’a Treaty, giving the Nisga’a control over 2,000 square kilometers of land, self-government, and $190 million.
In the statement, the spiritual leaders said they believed ratification would be in the best interests of British Columbia and Canadians.
They also said the ratification process should be preceded by public dialogue “based on respect and information sharing which leads to mutual understanding and reconciliation.”
The faith leaders pledged to “commit ourselves and our communities to such a dialogue and encourage all British Columbians to join us on this journey of understanding and reconciliation.”
The Aboriginal Rights Coalition, an ecumenical group of 12 national churches and organizations, commended the faith leaders for their decision. It said the Nisga’a people have a right to define their relationship within Confederation. The ARC also congratulated the Nisga’a leadership for their “patience and tenacity” in reaching the agreement with Canada and B.C. after decades of negotiations.
Archbishop Exner said he didn’t necessarily endorse all aspects of the agreement, but he supported it in the interest of justice and because it was negotiated by all parties.