SUBSCRIBE

Get new posts by email:

How to Use this Blog

Howdy! We've amassed tons of information and important history on this blog since 2010. If you have a keyword, use the search box below. Also check out the reference section above. If you have a question or need help searching, use the contact form at the bottom of the blog.

PLEASE follow this website by clicking the button above or subscribe.

We want you to use BOOKSHOP! (the editor will earn a small amount of money or commission. (we thank you) (that is our disclaimer statement)

This is a blog. It is not a peer-reviewed journal, not a sponsored publication... The ideas, news and thoughts posted are sourced… or written by the editor or contributors.

Blogger forced a change to our design so please SCROLL past the posts for lots more information.

Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ . THANK YOU MEGWETCH for reading

NEED HELP WITH AN ADOPTEE SEARCH? Have questions? Use comment form at the bottom of this website.

email: tracelara@pm.me

SEARCH

Monday, August 9, 2021

Canadian priest banned after downplaying residential school abuse

Father Rheal Forest also blamed the media for spreading ‘fake news’ about the physical abuse of Indigenous children.

People from the Mosakahiken Cree Nation hug in front of a makeshift memorial at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada [File: Cole Burston/AFP]
People from the Mosakahiken Cree Nation hug in front of a makeshift memorial at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada [File: Cole Burston/AFP]

Father Rheal Forest made the comments on July 10 during a sermon in St Emile Roman Catholic Church in Winnipeg where he was reportedly filling in for the church’s regular pastor.

“If they wanted extra money, from the money that was given to them, they had to lie sometimes – lie that they were abused sexually and, oop, another $50,000,” Forest said, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC).

“It’s kind of hard if you’re poor not to lie,” he reportedly said.

The CBC reported that after Forest’s remarks drew widespread outrage, the Archdiocese of St Boniface removed the videos from St Emile’s Facebook page and revoked his rights to preach publicly.

“His words have deeply, deeply hurt people,” Archbishop of St Boniface Albert LeGatt said in a video published on Facebook on Thursday.

“I completely disavow his words and the attitudes and thinking and approaches and culture behind those words,” he said.

Starting in 1831 and as recently as 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families, subjecting them to malnourishment and physical and sexual abuse in what the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide”.

Since May, hundreds of unmarked graves of children have been discovered.

Survivors who spoke with Canadian and international media recalled perpetual hunger and haunting loneliness, with schools run under the threat and frequent use of force.

 
Recently installed solar lights marking burial sites on Cowessess First Nation, where a search had found 751 unmarked graves from the former Marieval Residential School near Grayson, Saskatchewan, Canada [File: Shannon VanRaes/Reuters]

Kyle Mason, an Indigenous activist in Winnipeg and the son of a residential school survivor told CBC in an interview published on Friday that he was “saddened and disgusted” by the priest’s comments.

“I was really sad to hear that somebody in his type of position could still hold these kind of views after everything that’s been said and done,” he said.

“Survivors had to endure unspeakable horrors, tragedies, and that attempted genocide on cultures and language,” he said. “So it is absolutely disgusting that you would just label them as lying to get more money.”

In a video published by CBC, Forest blamed the media for spreading “fake news” about residential schools.

“This is the evil, the evil of media. Media makes people believe so many things. Fake news,” Forest said.

The discovery of the graves has rocked Canada, prompting searches elsewhere and forcing Canadians to confront their country’s genocidal treatment of Indigenous peoples.

While the Canadian government and some Canadian bishops have apologised, no pope has, despite the significant role the Catholic Church played in the largely church-run schools.

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please: Share your reaction, your thoughts, and your opinions. Be passionate, be unapologetic. Offensive remarks will not be published. We are getting more and more spam. Comments will be monitored.
Use the comment form at the bottom of this website which is private and sent direct to Trace.


Blog Archive

Most READ Posts

Bookshop

Canada's Residential Schools

The religious organizations that operated the schools — the Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Jesuits of English Canada and some Catholic groups — in 2015 expressed regret for the “well-documented” abuses. The Catholic Church has never offered an official apology, something that Trudeau and others have repeatedly called for.

You are not alone

You are not alone

Happy Visitors!

What our Nations are up against!

What our Nations are up against!

NEW MEMOIR

To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

Did you know?

Did you know?
lakota.cc/16I9p4D

Diane Tells His Name

Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines

Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines
click to read and listen about Trace, Diane, Julie and Suzie

ADOPTION TRUTH

As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

Original Birth Certificate Map in the USA

Why tribes do not recommend the DNA swab

Rebecca Tallbear entitled: “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe”, bearing out what I only inferred:

Detailed discussion of the Bering Strait theory and other scientific theories about the population of the modern-day Americas is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it should be noted that Indian people have expressed suspicion that DNA analysis is a tool that scientists will use to support theories about the origins of tribal people that contradict tribal oral histories and origin stories. Perhaps more important,the alternative origin stories of scientists are seen as intending to weaken tribal land and other legal claims (and even diminish a history of colonialism?) that are supported in U.S. federal and tribal law. As genetic evidence has already been used to resolve land conflicts in Asian and Eastern European countries, this is not an unfounded fear.

GOOGLE

In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines. This was revealed by a whistleblower named Zach Vorhies in his almost completely ignored book, Google Leaks, and by Project Veritas, in a sting operation against Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation. In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet. - https://desultoryheroics.com/2023/11/12/internet-censorship-everywhere-all-at-once

Google Followers