Prelate among 30 bishops, religious, and lay people at Ottawa meeting
OTTAWA (CCN)
The Catholic March 29 response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC’s) Calls to Action are “a couple of steps in a journey that’s going to take a long time,” says Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller.
Archbishop Miller was among 30 bishops, religious, and lay representatives of Catholic organizations at a March 14 meeting in Ottawa to reflect on a response to the TRC’s Call to Action #48 that asked faith communities to show how they plan to bring their policies in line with the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and Call to Action #49 that asked for a repudiation of the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery,” and Terra Nullius, that gave “first takers” or “discoverers” the right to seize land belonging to indigenous peoples.
On March 29, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council, the Canadian Religious Conference and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace released two detailed documents responding to Calls to Action #48 and #49
“This isn’t a silver bullet either,” said Archbishop Michael Miller. “The Church has been with the First Nations people for a long time, and will stay there and try to untie the knots that were tied at the time of the proclamation of the Gospel.”
“We want to learn, and appropriately apologize with the idea of moving towards real reconciliation as well,” Archbishop Miller said.
“I really think it’s time to come to that reconciliation and healing that people find some peace in their lives so that their children will also come to healing,” said Deacon Rennie Nahanee, who chairs the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council and coordinates First Nations’ Ministry for the Vancouver archdiocese. “I hope that First Nations people will want to reconnect with the Catholic Church again, to come back to that place where we at before– of love and friendship– and that the Church can still play a positive role in the Indigenous Peoples of Canada’s life.”
“I think the TRC bears that out in calling on the Church to do a number of things,” Nahanee said. “At this time, it’s not a one way street. It will be a dialogue between indigenous people and the Catholic Church on how some of these things might take place. That is the proper way to do it.”
A member of the Squamish First Nation, Deacon Nahanee said he is “in the doorway between our two cultures.” He said he understands “what the First Nations’ are about.”
“As clergy, I understand what the Church is all about and I can talk to both pretty comfortably,” he said.
Archbishop Chatlain, who serves a diocese made up of 83 per cent First Nations and Metis peoples, said the issues raised by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and its Calls to Action have been high on their agenda for a long time.
“This is huge thing for us,” he said.
“Some of the philosophies and cultural practices” that went into Canada’s founding did not make a “level playing field at all” for Indigenous peoples, he said.
Archbishop Chatlain said he is grateful to know more about the Doctrine of Discovery and Terra Nullius as well as about the UNDRIP because of the research done by the CCCB’s Justice and Peace Commission. The CCCB, realizing it could not speak for all Catholic organizations, invited the other groups to sign on, he said. “I just hope more of our Church and Canadians in general educate themselves about these issues.”
The March 29 documents signed by the Catholic groups said the “central themes” of the UNDRIP already “resonate strongly” with statements made by the Catholic Church, either by the Holy See or the CCCB.
“These include the rights of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination, self-government, and to their own distinct institutions, the right to their traditional territories, the right to a fair process to adjudicate land claims, the right to their cultural traditions and customs, the right to practice and manifest their spiritual traditions and customs, the right to maintain their languages, the right to their own educational institutions, the right to improvement of their economic and social conditions, the right to guide their own development, and the right to the recognition and enforcement of treaties,” they said.
Regarding the right of Indigenous Peoples to their own spiritual practices, the documents noted “the failure to uphold this right is a theme found throughout the TRC’s final report.”
“While the Catholic Church proclaims Jesus Christ, ‘the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), she also has a long, but scarcely known, history of forbidding religious coercion,” the document said. “Unfortunately, this teaching has not always been lived out by some of the Church’s own members, including clergy who had significant influence on the faithful.”
“We have to proclaim the Gospel,” said Archbishop Miller. “While the truth must be offered and proclaimed, if we proclaimed it in a way that was deficient and when we went outside the boundaries we should have, I, of course, regret that.”
Though there were historical instances of forced baptisms, in 1537 Pope Paul III declared evangelization of Indigenous Peoples “should only take place ‘by preaching the word of God and by the example of good and holy living,'” the document said.
“While Christians have at times failed to live up to the standard to which they are called by God, the glaring failures to respect the identity and freedom of Indigenous children, outline in the TRC Final Report are particularly saddening and must never be repeated.”
Archbishop Miller said his diocese is already working in the area of restorative justice and in providing information on the residential school system in the schools.
