Michael Swan

The tents in city parks, men and women gathered under Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, lean-tos and sleeping bags scattered through ravines, camp fires among the alder trees near the beaches — none of this is new to Toronto. But it has become a lot more visible since COVID came to town.

Indigenous scholar and former Cowessess First Nation Chief Terry Pelletier is challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate to ensure any Cree person can look up the full records of their family members who attended the Marieval Indian Residential School, where approximately 751 unmarked graves were found in June.

Over the last five years retired Ontario Superior Court Justice George Valin has asked three different Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ presidents why the bishops can’t simply, unanimously and open-heartedly invite Pope Francis to apologize on Canadian soil for the long, sad history of Catholic-run residential schools. He has yet to receive an answer.

A renewed effort is underway to make up for the failed Catholic “best efforts” campaign to raise $25 million for healing and reconciliation projects across Canada.

A national lay effort to raise funds and awareness for reconciliation is rising up out of the grassroots of the Catholic Church in Canada.

“Education got us into this; education will get us out of this.” Though those words were first spoken and repeated often by Truth and Reconciliation Commission chair Sen. Murray Sinclair, they’ve become the personal motto of St. Mary’s University Elder in Residence Casey Eagle Speaker.

In the wake of the Cowessess discovery of up to 751 unmarked graves, Western Canada’s Oblate missionary order is embracing a new level of transparency, making more documents about daily operations at the order’s 48 residential schools across Canada available.

“For better or worse, the gravesite findings are bringing us face-to-face with the brutal side of the residential schools,” Regina Archbishop Don Bolen told The Catholic Register the day after headlines screamed 751 more unmarked graves found at the Cowessess First Nation, less than two hours’ drive east of Holy Rosary Cathedral in southern Saskatchewan.

Turning the twin faculties of theology at Regis College and the University of St. Michael’s College into a single, unified, bigger and better Catholic theological hub is one big step closer to reality with an agreement to draft a memorandum of understanding for a new, federated structure by September.

Catholics can raise money. Pilgrims to St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal drop more than $15 million into the donation box every year. St. Paul’s, the big Catholic hospital in Vancouver, pulls in more than $20 million a year.