Journal supplement forthright, truthful
It is often said that one of the first steps in righting a wrong is to acknowledge that wrong. If that’s true, the Anglican Journal has made a strong contribution to healing the damage done in residential schools, through its May publication of Sins of the Fathers.
The 16-page supplement, commissioned by Journal editor David Harris and researched and written by freelance journalist David Napier over an eight-month period, reads like a well thought-out book. Although never gratuitous in its description, it details individual stories of abuse, puts faces on some of the victims, offers historical background and brings readers up to date on the legal and financial tangle that has grown out of the residential-school legacy.
The Anglican Church of Canada, of course, was not the only denomination to run residential schools on behalf of the Canadian government. The Roman Catholics, the Presbyterians and the Methodists (now represented by the United Church of Canada) also operated schools. Although the examples in Napier’s story are from the 28 Anglican-run schools, they could come from almost any of the 130 Indian residential schools operated between 1820 and 1980.
Ironic
There’s an irony in Sins of the Fathers. The supplement is illustrated throughout with large, beautiful black and white photos–photos of smiling boys on a hockey team, smiling girls playing on a swing, smiling boys on a horse, making faces for the camera, smiling girls scrubbing their clothes, smiling school children sitting at their desks.
Of course, those were the images the school and government officials wanted the public to see. What they didn’t want people to know about went on behind closed doors, and out of the range of a camera.
The full blow of residential-school fallout hasn’t been felt yet. Besides the record of suicides, crime, dysfunction, lack of parenting skills and hatred towards the Christian church, there are now lawsuits, which threaten the very future of the Anglican Church of Canada. The national body is already facing claims of more than $2 billion, and has assets of only about $10 million.
If all the lawsuits are carried through, General Synod of the Anglican Church could go bankrupt. But if the church faces the court in the same truthful, forthright manner of Sins of the Father, its courage and grace will go a long way in bringing forth healing and closure to a very painful chapter indeed.