Sunday July 24, 2022

There is only one event worth writing about this week -- Pope Francis’s “penitential pilgrimage.”

            “Penitential” means doing penance -- making amends for having done something wrong.

            The name alone acknowledges that the Roman Catholic church failed its indigenous members.

            Church doctrines have long taught that Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world. Figuratively, Pope Francis chose to do the same with his church’s involvement in residential schools.

            People have mixed feelings about his trip and his apologies.

            Among the non-indigenous population, I hear everything from hand-washing to humility.

            Many indigenous people, I gather, see the Pope’s words as exactly what they had hoped for. The highest Roman Catholic official came to their traditional territories to say that he was sorry for what members of his church had done.

            Others see it as only a partial success. Because Pope Francis did not reject the “Doctrine of Discovery” -- he collection of papal decrees that authorized European adventurers to seize the lands and the resources of people who already lived there.

            He did not hold the Roman Catholic church as an institution guilty of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

            And he did not magically make everything right again.

No magic wand

            I suggest we’re expecting too much of him. He’s not a fairy godmother who can change the world with a flick of his wand.

            In fact, he has far less power than most folks assume.

            The Roman Catholic Church is not a monolith. Every diocese is independent. The Pope appoints bishops and archbishops, but each diocese is otherwise autonomous.

            Even within the Vatican, the Pope’s powers are limited. He cannot, for example, overturn 2,000 years of church teachings.

            That is why he has been careful to say that “some members” committed sins and evils in the residential school system. That “some Christians” acted contrary to the core message of Jesus.

            In March 2000, Pope Francis’s predecessor John Paul II used the same pattern in his “Day of Pardon.”  In a series of apologies for historic wrongs done to women, Muslims, Jews slaves, and even heretics in the Inquisition, he referred to individuals in the church. Never to the Holy Catholic Church as a whole.

Unacceptable alternatives

            Here’s the theological problem.

            If Jesus is God, and the church is the ongoing Body of Christ, then admitting that the Body of Christ has sinned would imply that Christ himself is not sinless. And therefore that God is also not sinless.

            Which is unthinkable.

            To accept the institutional church’s complicity in ruthless and inhumane systems would require Pope Francis to do one of two things.  Either deny that the Holy Catholic Church is the continuing Body of a Christ. Or assert that Christ himself could have sinned.

            Personally, I have no problem believing that Jesus could have sinned. If he is fully human, it’s highly likely that he swiped a cookie from his mother’s kitchen. Or had murderous thoughts about Roman soldiers who gang-raped a Jewish girl.

            But this is not about my views. It’s about what the Pope can and cannot say.

What good is an apology?

            In that context, an article published by Conversation Canada, brings up an interesting parallel. Author Lori Campbell’s grandmother was a residential school survivor. All seven of Lori’s mother’s children were taken away from her in the infamous 60s Scoop.

            Almost as an aside, Campbell wrote: “Canada continues to investigate and hold accountable individuals who committed war crimes during the Second World War. Where is the accountability for those who have committed crimes against Indigenous children?”

            There are huge differences between the two race-based programs. But there are also some upsetting parallels.

            Germany herded Jews into concentration camps. Canada herded “Indians” into residential schools and remote reserves.

            Germany tried to eliminate a race with gas ovens. Canada used education, for the same purpose.

            During World War II, Pope Pius XII failed to denounce the Holocaust. He did not rally Catholics against Nazi pogroms.

            Would a confession of complicity undo the pain and suffering of Jews? I doubt it.

            Similarly, would a confession of complicity in the residential school system undo the pain and suffering of generations of indigenous people? I doubt that too.

            As I look back on the week, I find Pope Francis’s actions more convincing than the words he cannot say.

            He came to Canada. To be where the iniquities took place. To be among indigenous peoples. To unite his pilgrimage with theirs at Lac Ste. Anne.

            And instead of having a subject people kiss his ring, he kissed the hand of an aboriginal woman.

            To my mind, those actions count more than any speeches.

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

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Your turn

Judging by the lack of letters this last week, I have to assume that few of my readers go fishing. Although I didn’t really think last week’s column was about fish, but about preserving this world that we live in. If vulnerable fish die off, who’s next?

Vera Gottlieb got the point: “And not just fish…we have embarked on a road that is taking us where we much rather not be. And there is no-one to blame but ourselves - all of us.”

Eduard Hiebert made the same point: “A wise person with much foresight once quipped the earth is not dying but being killed, and those doing it have names and addresses.

            “To mix my metaphors, Rome is indeed burning and collectively we the many have a much greater chance of putting out the fire than letting the Neros (such as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the vested self-interest unions) continue to fiddle.”

            Eduard then tied our unwillingness to act together with his continuing focus on ranked-choice voting: “For some reason, while we have the elbow grease to get this done, there is a segment of the literate population that appears they prefer to defer the making of electoral choices to the very lowest common denominator --  the illiterate single-mark X when even the severely  math challenged know how to rank beyond one, two, three... and if given a proper choice would turn talk into walk by electing representatives of, by and for the people instead of representatives for whom most of us never voted.”

Carol Jeffa drew my attention to “an article in the Globe & Mail Saturday July 9  -- an opinion piece on page 8  ‘A Fishy Situation’.”

            Unfortunately, the G&M imposes a paywall on non-subscribers. Perhaps some of you who subscribe could find a way of sending it to me.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE

            The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns