pope

Tuesday April 5, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 5, 2022

The Vatican holds billions in assets. Residential school survivors say the Pope should step up on compensation

March 29, 2022

As a Canadian delegation prepares for its final meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican Friday, a growing chorus in Canada is hoping Francis commits to immediately remedying the Roman Catholic Church’s broken compensation promises to residential school survivors.

Canadian bishops announced a renewed fundraising effort last fall —  $30 million over five years — and say work is well underway.

But critics are skeptical. Even if that money can be raised, they say it’s wrong to make the dwindling number of elderly survivors wait that long. They say that if Canadian bishops won’t do it immediately, the Vatican should.

Although all the full specifics of the Vatican’s holdings are unknown, a tabulation of known assets puts them in the tens or possibly hundreds of billions of dollars.

September 5, 2018

Survivors say the compensation money isn’t for them — it’s to fund addictions and mental health supports, job training, recreation, language preservation and other programs for their descendants suffering through intergenerational trauma.

“It affected my children, my grandchildren. So many are lost,” said survivor and mental health worker Audrey Eyahpaise of the Beardy’s & Okemasis Cree Nation.

The survivors say the Vatican is just as responsible as the local religious orders and dioceses.

October 18, 2018

“This has been a struggle for many years. They’ve been patient. They keep hearing broken promises,” said University of Saskatchewan Indigenous studies professor and Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation member Bonita Beatty.

“It’s a hierarchy. They report up to the Vatican. So yes, he [Pope Francis] is responsible for the various arms of his government. He can’t just wash his hands of it.”

Francis’s supporters say he has moved the church toward greater transparency, but a definitive dollar figure of the Roman Catholic Church’s wealth remains unavailable.

CBC News collected publicly available information to obtain a partial list of the church’s assets. They include:the Vatican, Vatican Bank, art and architecture, investments, and land. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday March 29, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 29, 2022

Pope meets Canada Indigenous groups seeking apology for abuse of children

June 3, 2021

Pope Francis has heard first-hand the horrors of abuse committed at church-run residential schools in Canada, as Indigenous delegations pressed him for an apology.

Indigenous survivors are visiting the Vatican this week for meetings with the pope about the scandal that has rocked the Catholic church.

More than 1,300 unmarked graves have been discovered since last May at church-run schools attended by Canada’s Indigenous children as part of a government policy of forced assimilation.

“The pope listened … (he) heard just three of the many stories we have to share,” Cassidy Caron, president of the Métis National Council, told journalists in front of St Peter’s Square. “While the time for acknowledgment, apology and atonement is long overdue, it is never too late to do the right thing.”

Thursday June 3, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 3, 2021

The Catholic Church must atone for its role in residential schools

According to the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, the remains of 215 children have been found in the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. It’s grotesque, heartbreaking but — if we’re honest — not completely surprising. As we peel away the layers of lies and myths surrounding the treatment of Indigenous people in this country, few horrors seem impossible.

June 1, 2021

Residential schools and the damage they caused still form an open wound, and while apologies don’t fully heal, they do at least help begin some sort of closure. Which is why the reluctance of the Roman Catholic Church to show official and public contrition is so painful. This B.C. school was run by that church from 1890 to 1969, when the federal government took charge. It was closed nine years later.

The Catholic Church wasn’t alone in the residential school affair, but it is it alone in refusing to fully acknowledge its crimes. In 1986 the United Church stated, “We imposed our civilization as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may be blessed and God’s creation healed.”

Seven years later, Archbishop Michael Peers, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, issued a profoundly moving document: “I accept and I confess before God and you, our failures in the residential schools. We failed you. We failed ourselves. We failed God … I am sorry, more than I can say, that we tried to remake you in our image, taking from you your language and the signs of your identity.”

Toilet paper apologies

Such apologies were requested in the 94 recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Pope Francis personally to make such a statement when the two leaders met. Indeed, the House of Commons voted by a margin of 269-10 to formally invite the Pope to reconsider his reluctance.

Francis has said that he takes the issue “seriously,” but that “after carefully considering the request and extensive dialogue with the bishops of Canada, he felt that he could not personally respond.” In 1991, the Canadian Bishops said, “We are sorry and deeply regret the pain, suffering and alienation that so many experienced” at the residential schools, and two years later added that “various types of abuse experienced at some residential schools have moved us to a profound examination of conscience as a Church.” But that’s it, and it’s just not enough.

One of the central obstacles is that a church already mired in legal and financial troubles regarding abuse cases is frightened of the repercussions that might follow after a formal apology regarding residential schools. It’s already been asked to honour its financial obligations under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and to raise $25 million for Indigenous healing, as demanded in the residential schools settlement of 2007. That simply hasn’t happened.

October 23, 2020

While Pope Francis is progressive on many issues, he’s been worryingly opposed to acknowledging the church’s failings. In 2017, for example, he refused to apologize for the church’s history of sexual and physical abuse of children in Chile, and only changed his position after enormous public pressure.

Beyond the financial and legal consequences, there is also the issue of the church’s reputation. While many Catholics, and many leaders within the church, are ashamed at the very idea of the residential school system, conservative elements within the church see it more as a noble effort that was badly handled than an ideal that was flawed in itself. They are tired of what they see as apologizing for well-intended failure as opposed to immorality, and still look to their missionary work as important and ethical. That is where they are so out-of-step with other churches, and public opinion.

It may well take a new Papacy to change all this, and a Pope with the courage to ignore both the more traditional elements in his church, and his financial advisers who are terrified of prolonged compensation battles. That’s tragic not just for the victims of the residential schools, but for the message of Christianity as well. (Michael Coren, iPolitics)

Thursday October 18, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 18, 2018

Liberal government to waive fee, waiting time for pot pardons

The Liberal government will waive the fee and waiting period for Canadians seeking a pardon for a past conviction for simple pot possession.

March 7, 2013

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced today that the government intends to table legislation to expedite the pardon process for those with a criminal record for pot.

The fee for normal record suspensions is $631. The waiting period to apply is usually five years for a summary offence or 10 years for an indictable offence.

Goodale said it will “shed the burden and stigma” and break down barriers to jobs, education, housing or volunteer work.

But he could not give a timeframe for when someone could apply and obtain a pardon, noting that the “critical point” is getting the legislation tabled and passed in Parliament.

September 28, 2012

He said legalization represents a “fundamental transformation” of a legal regime that’s been in place for over a century.

“That is not a singular event. That is a process,” he said.

A record suspension does not erase the fact that you were convicted of a crime, but keeps the record separate and apart from other criminal records.

The NDP is calling for the expungement of criminal records, which would erase the criminal conviction entirely.

NDP Justice critic Murray Rankin called the pardon plan a “half-baked measure” that won’t remove the existing barriers the criminal record presents for travel, housing or volunteering. People who are asked on a form if they have a criminal conviction will still be required to answer “yes.”

“If you call that an expungement, then you will completely solve the problem that I think will, continue to exist,” he said.

Goodale said the government did not adopt that approach, because it is for cases where there has been a “profound historical injustice,” such as when a charter right was violated. (Source: CBC)  

 

Wednesday September 5, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator - Wednesday September 5, 2018 As crisis envelops Catholic Church, is Pope Francis facing a 'watershed moment'? ROME For some, the accusations sending tremors through the Catholic Church are a concerted and dubious attack by ultraconservatives on Pope Francis. For others, the accusations are a credible attempt to expose the depths of the Vatican's struggle to deal transparently with sexual abuse. But at the centre of the divided church is Francis, whose reputation is being challenged by the unverified accusations that he and other Vatican higher-ups had known for years about the sexual misconduct allegations against a now-resigned cardinal, Theodore McCarrick. One week after the release of a scathing 7,000-word letter from Vatican ex-ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Vatican watchers say Francis — who has yet to directly address the veracity of the accusations — is facing the greatest challenge of his papacy. Some Catholics have criticized him for what they describe as an insufficient response to the crisis. A few bishops have suggested that he call an extraordinary meeting to address sexual abuse in the church. And he faces pivotal decisions about whether to release abuse-related documents or green-light a who-knew-what investigation into McCarrick — with the possibility that such a probe could point fingers back to the Vatican. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/8877962-as-crisis-envelops-catholic-church-is-pope-francis-facing-a-watershed-moment-/ International, Roman Catholic, Vatican, Pontiff, Pope, Francis, church, sexual, misconduct, abuse, silence, air guitar, denial, concert

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 5, 2018

As crisis envelops Catholic Church, is Pope Francis facing a ‘watershed moment’?

ROME For some, the accusations sending tremors through the Catholic Church are a concerted and dubious attack by ultraconservatives on Pope Francis. For others, the accusations are a credible attempt to expose the depths of the Vatican’s struggle to deal transparently with sexual abuse.

March 1, 2016

But at the centre of the divided church is Francis, whose reputation is being challenged by the unverified accusations that he and other Vatican higher-ups had known for years about the sexual misconduct allegations against a now-resigned cardinal, Theodore McCarrick.

One week after the release of a scathing 7,000-word letter from Vatican ex-ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Vatican watchers say Francis — who has yet to directly address the veracity of the accusations — is facing the greatest challenge of his papacy.

Some Catholics have criticized him for what they describe as an insufficient response to the crisis. A few bishops have suggested that he call an extraordinary meeting to address sexual abuse in the church. And he faces pivotal decisions about whether to release abuse-related documents or green-light a who-knew-what investigation into McCarrick — with the possibility that such a probe could point fingers back to the Vatican. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)