OC: Hundreds of bodies found in unmarked graves at former Saskatchewan residential school

[China]

Hundreds of bodies found in unmarked graves at former Saskatchewan residential school

 

A Saskatchewan First Nation says it has made the “horrific and shocking discovery” of hundreds of unmarked graves — many believed to be children — near a former residential school, with a total expected to be over three times higher than the 215 discovered recently in Kamloops, B.C., according to a source briefed on the file.

 

Leaders of the Cowessess First Nation, a roughly two hour drive east of Regina, are expected to reveal details of the macabre discovery near what was once the Marieval Indian Residential School during a press conference Thursday morning, as well as the latest count of newly-identified remains.

 

“The number of unmarked graves will be the most significantly substantial to date in Canada,” says an advisory published Wednesday evening by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan.

 

The remains are in unmarked graves in a communal gravesite first used in 1885 but eventually taken over by the Marieval Indian Residential School, founded and operated by the Roman Catholic Church beginning in 1899 on what was then the Marieval Reserve.

Administration of the school was handed over to the federal government in 1969 and then the Cowessess First Nation in 1987 before being closed in 1997. Everything but the church, rectory and cemetery was demolished shortly after, according to National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation records.

 

The First Nation teamed up with an underground radar detection team from Saskatchewan Polytechnic to begin the search just over three weeks ago. In an interview in late May, Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme told the Regina Leader-Post that he did not know how many people’s remains might be discovered.  It is estimated that only one third of graves are marked.

 

The discovery comes less than a month after the “unthinkable” discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children — some as young as three years old — in unmarked graves near the Kamloops Indian Residential School outside Kamloops, B.C.

 

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) determined that at least 3,200 Indigenous children died while attending residential school, and that general practice was “not to send the bodies of students who died at schools to their home communities.”

 

“Many students who went to residential school never returned. ­They were lost to their families. Th­ey died at rates that were far higher than those experienced by the general school-aged population. ­Their parents were often uninformed of their sickness and death. Th­ey were buried away from their families in long-neglected graves,” reads the 2015 TRC report.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[China]

Mississauga pastor under fire for saying there was 'good done' in residential schools

 

A Mississauga pastor is receiving criticism and has been temporarily sidelined from performing church services after commenting about “the good done” in the residential school system.

Videos of Monsignor Owen Keenan of Merciful Redeemer Parish speaking about residential schools on June 19 and 20 were posted online.

 

His comments, in part, were, “I presume the same number would thank the Church for the good that was done in those schools, but of course that question was never asked. And in fact, we are not allowed to even say that good was done in those schools.”

 

“Many people had very positive experiences of residential schools … they weren’t universally awful.”

 

Keenan later said, “We don’t know how those children died. We don’t and can’t know if they would have died had they stayed at home.”

 

The Archdiocese of Toronto said in a statement, they apologized for “anyone who was offended by his remarks.”

 

“Msgr. Keenan has pledged to fully educate himself, with the appropriate support, to gain a more wholesome understanding of the full history of residential schools and their impact in our country,” read the statement.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[Larry]

I would certainly hope that Keegan's points were accurate. I would hope that lots of good was done in those schools. 
 

Granted, his comments could be factually accurate, and still inappropriate. I mean, a day after it's revealed that a Little League coach molested 17 kids, saying that "well, he also taught a bunch of them how to slide" might be accurate. But it's really disingenuous. 

[China]

Catholic orphanages and schools for the needy in the 19th century had both good and bad sides.  Remember this from here in the US:

 

And to McSluggo's point in that thread, they commented in the article that there was a much higher mortality rate for those Indian schools in Canada than in the general population for the same age group.

[China]

Latest First Nations discovery reveals 182 unmarked graves at Canada school

 

Lower Kootenay Band finds human remains at former residential school in British Columbia – the third such discovery in weeks

 

A First Nations community in western Canada has discovered the remains of nearly 200 people on the grounds of a former residential school, adding to the growing tally of unmarked graves across the country.

 

The Lower Kootenay Band said on Wednesday that ground-penetrating radar had revealed 182 human remains at St Eugene’s Mission residential school, near the city of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Some of the remains were buried in shallow graves only three and four feet deep.

 

“It is believed that the remains of these 182 souls are from the member Bands of the Ktunaxa Nation, neighbouring First Nations communities and the community of ?Aq’am,” the Lower Kootenay band said in a statement.

 

From the 19th century until the 1990s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded schools in an campaign to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society. Abuse was rife at the schools where thousands of children died of disease, neglect and other causes.

 

The discovery at St Eugene’s adds to the growing list of unmarked graves. Last week, the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced the discovery of 751 possible unmarked graves. Last month, the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc announced they had found 215 unmarked graves, most of which are believed to be children.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Thousands of children from Canadian schools for indigenous communities may be buried in unmarked graves, officials say

 

The first forensic evidence that unmarked graves in their hundreds were located at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School was a juvenile rib bone and tooth found beneath the apple orchard.

 

But survivors of the school say they didn't need forensic proof to know that hundreds of children went missing in Kamloops. And this week, new scientific evidence supported what indigenous elders in the Canadian province of British Columbia call the "Knowing."

In an emotional presentation by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation on Thursday, officials investigating the unmarked graves warned that more were likely to be found in the coming months.

"After all, this investigation has barely scratched the surface, covering just under two acres of the total 160-acre residential school site," said Sarah Beaulieu, a specialist in ground-penetrating radar who has been leading the forensic investigation.

 

The Canadian government has said that it would fund more investigations into unmarked graves in indigenous communities across the country, but it has also faced criticism for not doing so sooner, as outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its 2015 report.

Trudeau has said since the initial discovery in Kamloops in late May that his government will cooperate and provide funding for investigations.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Riggo-toni]

All this feels like a great premise for a new horror movie.

[China]

US churches reckon with traumatic legacy of Native schools

 

The discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential schools for Indigenous children in Canada have prompted renewed calls for a reckoning over the traumatic legacy of similar schools in the United States — and in particular by the churches that operated many of them.

 

U.S. Catholic and Protestant denominations operated more than 150 boarding schools between the 19th and 20th centuries. Native American and Alaskan Native children were regularly severed from their tribal families, customs, language and religion and brought to the schools in a push to assimilate and Christianize them.

 

Some U.S. churches have been reckoning with this activity for years through ceremonies, apologies and archival investigations, while others are just getting started. Some advocates say churches have more work to do in opening their archives, educating the public about what was done in the name of their faith and helping former students and their relatives tell their stories of family trauma.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Churches confess and repent for sins against Native and Indigenous people

 

Each Sunday, Culver City Presbyterian Church Pastor Frances Wattman Rosenau begins the worship service with these words:

 

"As we gather for worship this day, we acknowledge that the land on which we gather was for many generations stewarded by the Tongva, Kizh and Chumash people. We recognize the enduring presence of indigenous peoples connected to and on this land."

 

Wattman Rosenau first began using a land acknowledgement to open services in 2017, after attending a conference in Canada that also opened sessions with a similar land acknowledgement. She took great care crafting the language for her congregation's version—especially with one word in particular.

 

"Stewardship is a very theological word for us," she says, "because it implies care, and providing, tending—a deep relationship."

 

It's a relationship with the earth Wattman Rosenau says Christians should emulate and a relationship with Native and Indigenous people they should cultivate. She hopes placing these words at the beginning of the service is leading her flock to both learn more about their Native neighbors and reflect on the historic violence toward Indigenous people perpetrated by churches during the era of colonization.

 

"As Christians, we have a deep, long tradition of repentance, of truth telling, speaking truth to power," Wattman Rosenau says. "Repentance is not just so that we can wallow in the guilt, but so that there can be a mending. So that the things that have been broken can be healed."

 

Healed from a long tradition of conquest and colonization started in the 15th Century during the Age of Exploration, including the time when Christopher Columbus arrived in North America. That tradition of claiming new lands for European powers is based on an idea now called the Doctrine of Discovery, says Nancy Pineda-Madrid, professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

 

"It's not one written document," she says. "There are a series of documents – papal bulls – in which the pope gave rights to claim these lands to Portugal and to Spain."

 

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