I was stunned by an editorial by Father Raymond J. de Souza in the Post yesterday. He wrote that while the Residential Schools were bad, we must balance that out with the good they did in spreading Christianity amongst the heathen.
Makes you think. I’d imagine a century from now, if everything goes wrong in just the right way, the Grand Mufti of Nunavut or Montreal would be saying something similar:
… violence was used, people were coerced, some died – yes this was a crime, and this was contrary to Islam, but we cannot forget the hard work of the countless jihadis who faced unbearable hardship to spread the light of Allah to the kuffar. Do not forget that the majority of the former kuffar are Muslims today. They do not remain Muslims because there is a scimitar at their throat, but because they were witness to the charity and strength of faith of these true Muslims for whom our Emir sees fit to apologize today.
Cram the same words into the mouth of a priest and they magically become palatable. For some reason, the spreading of some dead fable can justify crimes of any scale.
I never fail to be awed by the audacity and shamelessness of priests.
Filed under: Politics , Atheism, Canada, crime, Politics, Religion
…or of absolutists and ideologues, whatever the ideology that drives them. That way lies madness.
rj, I don’t often disagree with you, but try as I may I do not see the word “heathen’ in the article nor to I see any passage or paragraph that can be interpreted in no other way than “we must balance that out with the good they did in spreading Christianity amongst the heathen.” I think you are reading into his words something more than what is really there.
I guess it depends on whether or not you count “conversion to Christianity” as a “good” in and of itself. Father De Souza clearly sees the process as a kind of spiritual vaccine – possibly painful, perhaps necessary to accomplish against the will of the patient, but all for the greater the good. Those of us who do not see conversion to Christianity as an automatic “good” view it differently.
That interpretation is not “clear” to me. Could you cut and paste the relevant passages that you believe imply what you seem to think it says?
Robert, I agree it’s ridiculous to compare the subjective good done to the evident abuses. But religious leaders all tend to see right and wrong based on how it benefits their own religion.
Having said that, my wife did notice a lot of residential school “survivors” wearing crucifixes in media clips. It looks like, from Father de Souza’s point of view, it was all worthwhile because many were saved by Jesus Christ. [it's a warped kind of view, one only really capable in religion]
I’m with you. Maybe the word “heathen” isn’t used directly, but it’s certainly implicit. I liked your analogy. It puts things in a needed perspective.
This priestly falsehood immediately caught my eye:
Many students were saved from serious childhood illnesses, or even death, because of their access to health care.
Access to health care? What access to health care? They put kids with highly infectious TB and healthy children in the same dorms. The mortality rate was as high as 60%. Yes, there was TB in the villages, but to argue that health care was a facet of residential schooling is really pushing it.
And then this:
And, as delicate a subject as it is to raise, not a few children were saved from the abuse and neglect that they were facing at home.
I’d like to know more. We shouldn’t compare current conditions with those that existed back then. I know that the Inuit, for example, have been plagued with all sorts of social dysfunction–domestic abuse, a skyrocketing suicide rate–but largely since sedentarization in the late forties and early fifties. I might suggest (since the good father is obviously in the realm of ill-informed speculation here) that social dysfunction among the aboriginal communities is, in part, directly attributable to the residential school experience.
Dr. Dawg, that “priestly falsehood” is, on the contrary, an accurate characterization of the residential schools during their final years. The period in history which you refer to was in the earlier part of the 20th century. The schools were in operation until well into the 1970s, and under Indian control even beyond that. You need to be a bit more cautious about make sweeping statements about the entire 100 and some odd years of their history.
I agree with your second statement, though. That very same thought ran through my mind when I read that part.
However, I think you too are reading into the article something that isn’t there and are missing his main point. There are Aboriginal people who attended those schools who did not experience all these horrific atrocities and their voices seem to have been swept aside in the rush to foment a hatefest. What I see in the “good father’s” statement is a plea for honesty in that we should be willing to hear the whole story, not just the bad parts.
As a self-described heathen, meaning, someone who embraces the indigenous, pre-Christian beliefs of his Northern European ancestors… I’m a wee bit tired of the misuse of this term. See the URL if you wish to learn more.
That being said, I think the post makes an excellent point about how villainy is justified by clergy. That’s the danger of any monotheistic faith. One God, one way. Polytheists are much more tolerant of other beliefs and, frankly, not ruled by fear of eternal punishment from a “loving” diety.
Wassail!
Mike
The Happy Heathen of Hartford
“What I see in the “good father’s” statement is a plea for honesty in that we should be willing to hear the whole story, not just the bad parts.”
Yup. And that’s what the commission is for.The Church HAS lied and covered up: the Government HAS lied and covered up; and Aboriginal leaders HAVE exploited for political advantage. Yup, yup, yup. So let’s get it out on the table.
They make the point much more explicitly on the National Post podcast.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/06/11/podcast-on-harper-s-apology-why-bad-things-happen-when-governments-say-they-re-sorry.aspx