For the second week, the Archdiocese of Toronto Facebook page has featured reflections on the Advent Readings by Regina Bishop Donald Bolen linking all of them with the residential school system that was developed in Canada between 1880 and the 1960s.
Residential schools for native Canadians was an official Government of Canada policy. It was designed to "educate" the children by removing them from their families, often nomadic depending on where in Canada and which tribe. The education involved the repudiation of their native languages and cultures. Economic development demanded that the provinces and federal government control the land to be sold off to immigrant farmers and developed for resources. Our native Canadians were in the way. It was a different time. The matter of the involvement of the Catholic Church and mainline Protestant ones was dealt with more than a decade ago. It came to the fore recently due to unmarked and abandoned graves being discovered provoking outrage. It is a complex issue. However, the Catholic Church had no business taking children from their families to re-educate them in anything. The bishops and religious orders of the day did the government's bidding for money, just as they have over the last nearly two years with the closure of churches. In fact, in many dioceses, including Toronto, people still cannot receive Holy Communion on the tongue causing many to continue an abhorrent eucharistic fast.
Now, Collins and his ilk are trying to blame the laity and tell us what we must do.
No, you deal with it. I had nothing to do with this nor did my family which began in Canada in 1886. My grandfather, a merchant in Fredericton, fed many of the Micmac. In Toronto, my paternal one gave food away during the Great Depression.
The laity did not do this. The laity must without any money that these deceitful bishops try to coerce in an effort to assuage the political focus of the day.
Not one penny!
