‘Everything is ashes’: communities grieve loss of two Catholic mission churches on First Nations land

The RCMP is investigating after two separate fires reduced two historic Catholic churches on First Nations lands in the Okanagan area to rubble June 21.

The fires, which police consider suspicious, were discovered in the early hours of Monday at Sacred Heart Mission Church on Penticton Indian Band land and St. Gregory Mission Church on Osoyoos Indian Band land, about 50 kilometres away from each other.

“Everything is ashes. There is nothing left,” said Father Thomas Kakkaniyil, pastor of Christ the King Parish in Oliver, which oversees the St. Gregory Mission.

“It’s so hard.”

He told The B.C. Catholic the “beautiful church” was about 100 years old and the site of funerals and celebrations like any average place of worship. Sunday Masses were celebrated there once a month with as many as 50 faithful showing up for services.

St. Gregory’s had been sitting closed for about a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but re-opened June 20. Father Kakkaniyil said members of the community helped clean and prepare it for Mass, and after the celebration he snapped a group photo with those who gathered for their first Sunday back together.

It’s likely the last photo anyone ever took of the inside of St. Gregory’s, which was engulfed in flames about 12 hours later.

Sacred Heart Church also had dedicated faithful and an important history, said Father Obi Ibekwe, pastor of St. Ann’s Parish in Penticton.

Sacred Heart, built in 1911, was “the first church in Penticton,” he told The B.C. Catholic. It was “the place where the seed of faith was planted” and the “cradle of Catholicism” in the community.

In recent years, Sunday Mass was celebrated at Sacred Heart with fewer than 10 people a week on average, although it became a hub of celebration at Christmas and Easter with as many as 80 people filling its pews.

Since the B.C. government ordered churches closed due to the pandemic last November, it had been sitting vacant, and in recent amicable talks with First Nations members it was agreed to keep it closed for the time being while feelings about the Kamloops Indian Residential School graveyard discovery ran hot.

Father Ibekwe has visited the burned church several times. “Last night, I went around the place and blessed it,” he said Wednesday.

“In a time like this, faith can even increase in the hearts of people. We will keep on loving. We will keep on smiling to people in the city. Jesus is in our hearts and we can take him to everybody we meet,” he tells his parishioners.

“God redirects us, we simply have to trust like Abraham.”

The Catholic community in Penticton united June 18 for a candlelight vigil to pray for the souls of the 215 found buried at a Kamloops Indian Residential School. Father Ibekwe said members of Sacred Heart Church who want to attend Mass are welcome at the sister churches of St. Ann’s or St. John Vianney in Penticton. Temporary arrangements are also being made for members of St. Gregory’s to attend Mass in their area.

The Penticton Indian Band released a statement saying both the Penticton and Osoyoos bands felt “disbelief and anger” at the news of the two fires.

“These places of worship provided service to members who sought comfort and solace in the church,” the statement said.

“We understand the grief and rage felt by our people across the country after the discovery of unmarked graves at government/Catholic-run former residential schools. This is a symptom of the intergenerational trauma our survivors and descendants are experiencing, however we have supports to help deal with these emotions in a more healing way.”

The statement said the church has been part of the “first memories” of members of the community.

The band is cooperating with the RCMP investigation and asking people to stay away from the immediate area, calling it unsafe. They also asked members of the public not to approach First Nations people in the area to ask how they feel about the fire, calling it a “fresh wound that needs time to heal.”

There are “mixed emotions” about the Catholic presence in Penticton, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told CBC.

“There are people [in the band community] that have an intense hatred for the Catholic Church in regard to the residential school experience.”

But the Penticton band was “devastated” by the loss of the church, Phillip told The Globe and Mail. “There was a particular moment when the structure was failing that the church bell fell from the tower ... when it hit the ground there was a single ring, and that triggered people and they just started crying.”

Father Kakkaniyil said there have been breakin attempts in the past at St. Gregory’s.

Nelson Bishop Gregory Bittman said in a statement he is “very saddened” by the loss of the two mission churches in his diocese and the pain that has resulted.

“For many years, our priests have been welcomed to minister in these mission churches and it is our hope that this ministry will continue. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the fires.”

The Catholic Civil Rights League said it lamented the loss of the century-old churches and is adding the fires to a searchable database of acts of vandalism against Catholic churches in Canada it began work on last year. The database is not complete yet.

The CCRL said the Indigenous peoples of the Okanagan “must now suffer further in having lost two churches.” The league noted Indigenous people in Canada continue to self-identify as Christian, the majority of these Catholic. According to the 2011 National Household Survey of Statistics Canada, of 1,400,685 persons who self-identified as Aboriginal in private households, 889,315, or 63 percent identified as Christian. Of these, over 500,000 identified as Roman Catholic.

The league called for prayers “for reconciliation and peace and for a Canada in which people of faith may continue to thrive in their communities, for themselves, and in contribution to our society and our nation.”

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