Russia’s Vladimir Putin could do well to follow the example of Pope Francis and his penitential pilgrimage to Indigenous Canada by apologizing and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation from the Ukraine people for his slaughter of the Ukraine innocents.
Joe Schwarz
Penticton
Having just read the speech that Pope Francis gave at the beginning of his penitential journey to Canada, I was wondering how we Catholics in our parishes, together with our priests, can increase our understanding of what happened and move into a better future together.
Priests are overburdened already, but we parishioners cannot exclude ourselves from the possibility of a healing journey.
Could we have groups throughout the next few months where this excellent speech will be read in smaller or larger groups in every parish? We have mature parishioners in every parish who would be able to function as leaders.
Marianne Werner
Vancouver
I have been renewed in my faith and work by Pope Francis’ journey penitential pilgrimage in Canada. The venues were great and well chosen.
Thank you for his gift to Canadians and Indigenous brothers and sisters. I have it in my heart to do more in what God gives us to do.
Marcelle Marion
Winnipeg
A photo caption in the Aug. 1 B.C. Catholic said, “Si Pih Ko, also known by her English name as Trina Francois, becomes emotional as she sings Canada’s national anthem in the Cree language during a visit by Pope Francis in Maskwacis, Alberta.”
This was not the true meaning of Si Pih Ko’s song lyrics or her statement in Cree. The emotion expressed when she sang brought me to tears. I do not speak Cree, so my curiosity made me search for news about the true meaning of her song and speech over the next few days. The CBC reported that she sang in Cree to the tune of Canada’s national anthem and that the song lyrics were an ancient ballad to the land and the village and the message was a rebuke to the Pope and the Church.
As Catholics we are obligated to speak the truth, even when it is not flattering.
Mary-Ellen Burgess
Burnaby
The B.C. Catholic has intensely covered the papal visit in Canada, the intentions, speeches, homilies, and excursions. One could not cover what was not included in the Pope’s visit, such as a natural recognition of the history of all the missionaries and martyrs of Canada. They have been sacrificed in today’s view that all were guilty of colonialism.
The fact that many Catholic churches were torched with little public outcry and regret months ago could have received a papal acknowledgment of their misguided destruction.
Apologies given and accepted are healthy and humbling. Nevertheless this visit left to many the impression that the Pope apologized for the Catholic faith itself not fitting into the global secular world fast enough.
Cecilia von Dehn
Vancouver
Following the Pope’s visit I’m following up on an earlier letter about the building of a new church in Whistler.
The Pope is gone but as a Catholic and a Canadian the profound meaning of the visit made by our 86-year-old leader remains. I was moved by the images of great fatigue and deep suffering for which he may not have been prepared. I am convinced that the raw intensity of the personal, direct narratives surpassed the depth of his heart.
His departure and his words, like the erasure of names and marks from the bare earth in the recent past, remain with us. The times and human expression of condemnation, along with the offer of a sincere apology, have been fulfilled, yet the heinous and uncomfortable legacy remains.
What will happen now?
The image of the Pope in a wheelchair evokes the image of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey. The sign of humility, the humanity of the gesture, and the request for forgiveness is with us; the die is cast.
Now it is the turn of Canadian Catholic communities, and of Whistler Catholics. It is a chance to begin a new relationship with Indigenous peoples and restore dignity to the innocent souls lost to history before us.
The logic of numbers, big spending, and ostentation must give way to the logic of love and fraternal help.
It’s a powerful reason to stop and rethink whether the construction of the new church is the new message to be given.
Andrea Padovani
West Vancouver
In 1968 the “Winnipeg Statement” set itself against the teaching authority of the Church in Humanae Vitae by leaving it up to the conscience of the individua whether to use artificial contraception. With this the floodgates to sexual deviation and abortion were opened.
In the consequent decades this “freedom of conscience” was quietly extended to pro-abortion officials who received Holy Communion from popes, bishops, and priests, and were even given state funerals in cathedrals. The recent statement of Pope Francis about leaving it up to the conscience of President Biden to receive Holy Communion is just a casual approval of how things have been handled so far in the last decades.
But abortion is murder. If you commit it or cooperate in any way you are excommunicated. It is not a matter of conscience but setting yourself against the Commandments of God, written into every human heart!
There has been a quick descent from abortion to “passive” euthanasia by withholding food and water from patients to active euthanasia in “Medical Aid in Dying,” to now including the mentally ill and poverty-stricken ailing people.
And in the last two years we have seen all-out assault on the world’s population with a mandated abortion-tainted gene serum. The Church has become a slave to government, playing along, promoting, and mandating these injections, driving out of the Church those who do not agree.
What is going on cannot be excused with “freedom of conscience.”
Gerlinde Elsbett
Powell River
Pride, the mother of sins, is the first of the seven capital sins. It is through pride that Lucifer together with his followers were ejected from heaven and cast upon the earth, where they have been plotting the destruction of mankind and the Catholic Church which Jesus Christ founded upon St. Peter.
Jesus promised that he would be with her until the end of times and that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church. He must have known about the trials and tribulations she would undergo throughout her history, where there have been and still are those who are seeking her quick demise, in union with that serpent of old and the great deceiver.
We have been informed by medical authorities about monkeypox. It is spreading fast through close contact with an infected person. In the majority of cases it has spread through homosexual contact. No amount of “fun-filled” Pride parades is going to stop its spread.
This is where an unrestrained and misunderstood Human Rights Act has led us. Can anybody say society is better and safer than it was ten years ago? What was right before is now wrong, and what was wrong before is now right. Then we wonder why this world is headed towards the abyss.
John Bueno
North Vancouver
Re the Aug. 1 B.C. Catholic article “Redefining euthanasia as ‘compassion’”:
While researching a related issue, an article about Nazi eugenics caught my attention because it shows just how much of “MAiD” is merely a repeat. Back then, some people were hanged for it.
And now?
Arnold Wiegert
Surrey
