As Pope Francis travelled across Canada, so did a demand to revisit centuries-old declarations. At the front of a basilica in Quebec, where the 85-year-old pontiff prepared to preside over mass, Sarain Fox and her cousin stood in silence, holding a banner with the words “Rescind the Doctrine” emblazoned in […]
Residential Schools
Michelle Shenandoah, a member of the Oneida Nation, is wondering why she didn’t get to meet Pope Francis Wednesday evening at the Citadel in Quebec City, to show him a cradleboard he asked to see. “We didn’t know until the very last minute that that wasn’t going to happen,” she […]
Warning: This story deals with disturbing subject matter that may upset and trigger some readers. Discretion is advised. According to Tom McCallum (White Standing Buffalo), when Cree-speaking peoples first saw the “black robes” kneeling down and immersed in prayer, they didn’t know what the clergymen were doing. Pointing up to […]
It won’t be easy for Peter Irniq, a residential school survivor, to meet Pope Francis in Iqaluit next week. “It’s going to be scary,” said Irniq, who was abused by a nun at the age of 11 as a student at the school in Chesterfield Inlet in what is now […]