Residential Schools: Unmarked Graves

I wonder what your reaction was to the news last month concerning residential schools. I am thinking of the discovery of unmarked graves at former schools in western Canada. These are the graves presumably of hundreds of indigenous children who died while attending church-run institutions over many years in the last century.

Some of the graves, we are told, may have been for departed members of the local white population, but the vast majority would have been for the native children who died, far from home and family, while attending these schools—schools established by government mandate, to “christianize” and “civilize” the indigenous peoples of this land.

The discovery of the graves poses some troubling questions. Were the names of these children recorded anywhere? Were their families notified? Were their deaths registered? Were they given Christian burial? We don’t know. For the moment, we know only that their final resting place was unmarked.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission which published its final report at the end of 2015 forewarned that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of native children died while in the care of the churches who ran the residential schools on behalf of the government, so there will likely be more such discoveries in the future.

The story of the residential schools, this blot on our national history, cannot itself be laid to rest in an unmarked grave. This is a shameful story in which, like it or not, we are implicated. We are implicated, first, as Canadians, no matter what our religious or ethnic identity. Our government pursued a policy designed, to put it crudely but in language used by some of its proponents, to take the savage out of the Indian. Not all the teachers and staff who worked in the schools were predators and martinets. Some were sincerely motivated by a love for the indigenous people and a desire to improve their lot. But their good intentions were over-ridden by the ill- conceived, racist project of which they were part. The evil was a social one in which good and bad alike participated and which gave an occasion to the darker inclinations of human nature. Think of the analogy of war.

We are also implicated in this evil as Christians and Anglicans. Only religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church operated more residential schools than did our church. But perhaps you will object: we cannot be implicated in this evil, you will say. None of us consented to the establishment of these schools. None of us worked in them; none of us committed the abuses that have come to light. And, to that extent, true, none of us is guilty of the sins committed by others. We are not guilty. But, let me suggest, we are liable. By that I mean we have a responsibility to repent of the sins of our nation and of our church.

But how can we repent of things for which we are not personally responsible? In the first place, remember the example of Jesus, the pioneer of our faith, who underwent John’s baptism of repentance though there was no guilt in him. He embraced the sign of repentance because he chose to identify with us who do need to repent. And as his subsequent wilderness experience shows, his acceptance of our condition presented him with real temptations from which he had to turn away, and in the face of which he resolved to embrace his vocation with humility. So, first, there is Jesus who repents, in the sense that he turns away from the way of sin on behalf of those of us who do not.

In the second place, consider our Anglican practice of general confession. Our prayers of confession are in the first-person plural. It is we who confess. “We acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed . . .” So we say in the Prayer Book Communion Office. Or, in the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, we confess to God that “we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep; we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts; we have offended against thy holy laws; we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have
done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.”

These prayers present us with a challenge. If we are to say them with authenticity, must we not examine ourselves, not only in our own consciences, but also as a community, as a church gathered around the Lord? In other words, our responsibility to lead a life worthy of our calling, and our failure to do so, belongs not just to each of us individually, but to all of us together, as a
community, as a parish, as a society. When we confess our sins we speak with one voice. Of course each of us says the prayer of confession because each of us needs to own up, in the privacy of his or her or their own heart, to their own sins and wickedness. But in the general confession we are speaking, too, as a corporate body. It is not the case that individuals are sinful and the congregation is not. It is not the case that individuals err and stray from God’s ways but governments do not. How have we failed as a community, as a church, as a society to walk in love?

One of the problems with the Anglican prayers of confession is that the words are beautiful and time-honoured. The words roll off the tongue with such ease that we can leave them there. I mean we can leave them on the tips of our tongues. It would offend liturgical decorum to stutter the prayer as we knelt in our pews, and wept with a contrition springing from the depths of conscience. But that is where the prayer needs to begin, in a broken and contrite heart, even if it comes out smoothly in public.

In the spiritual tradition of which our Prayer Book is part, repentance involves a number of elements. Contrition, or sorrow for the wrong done is one of those elements. Apology, or confession, is a public expression of contrition. Most of the apologies one hears today are nothing of the sort. An apology is not conditional. It is not saying, “if I have hurt anyone, then I am sorry.” No; that’s not an apology. A real apology is categorical. It’s to own up to the wrong I have done; it is to say, “I acknowledge that I have done wrong and for that I am sorry, regardless of mitigating circumstances—regardless of anyone else’s feelings.” That is a true apology. Moreover, in many cases, apology is not enough for repentance since compensation or reparation for the injury done may be possible, and will show that the wrongdoer grasps that the wrong done has stolen something that belonged to the injured party, fundamentally, the respect that is their due. Above and beyond compensation, a repentant sinner will resolve to demonstrate to the injured party how much they value the relationship that their sin has damaged.

In fact, all these elements—contrition, confession, reparation, and satisfaction—have been woven into the Anglican Church of Canada’s repentance for its involvement in the residential schools. Let me read part of what our Primate at the time said when he apologized on our behalf. In 1993, almost 30 years ago, Archbishop Michael Peers, addressing the National Native Convocation, said this: “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 were part of a system which took you and your children from home and family. 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. I am sorry, more than I can say, that in our schools so many were abused physically, sexually, culturally and emotionally. On behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada, I present our apology.” The apology goes on to mention some of the actions undertaken by our church at the national level, as the Primate put it, “to walk with you along the path of God’s healing.”

So, as a national church, we have repented of our involvement in the residential schools, and that repentance has committed us to an ongoing work of reconciliation. It may help to remember this the next time a news story breaks concerning this shameful history in our national and church life.

I began by asking what your reaction was to the news concerning the unmarked graves. The danger of not knowing that there is a continuing work of repentance that in principle includes us is that we may feel ourselves powerless in our outrage, or shame and sorrow. To allay those feelings of powerlessness it is a short step to denial, or to indifference, or to self-exculpation by blaming others for the unpleasant intrusion of these unhappy reminders — we may blame the secular media, or the Roman Catholics for not keeping their end of the bargain, perhaps even blame the victims themselves. I have heard all these excuses. Some may even decide they can feel more purely spiritual if they just leave the church. But we don’t have to go there. We don’t have to accept that we are powerless, innocent bystanders and that others are to blame. We can turn our outrage into repentance. We can join our sorrow to that expressed by our Primate in 1993. We can let it inform our prayer of general confession.

Now, the fact that we issued an apology almost 30 years ago, and that the government did so eleven years ago, does not exempt us from the ongoing work of reconciliation, though here it is less clear what we can contribute if we have no contact with native peoples. The least we can do is to keep ourselves informed. I know people who have decided to read the Calls to Action published separately from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report. Here we can make a beginning.

The Primate issued the apology on a Friday. In fact, it was Friday, August 6. He concluded the apology with these words “This is Friday, the day of Jesus’ suffering and death. It is the anniversary of the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima, one of the most terrible injuries ever inflicted by one people on another. But even atomic bombs and Good Friday are not the last word. God raised Jesus from the dead as a sign that life and wholeness are the everlasting and unquenchable purposes of God.” Today is Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection. In this Eucharist we proclaim that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Let us receive him in the sacrament with penitent and thankful hearts.

John Simons
Honorary Assistant
Anglican Parish of Sackville
August 15, 2021