Kathleen Lichti

Genocide in Canada?

Genocide in Canada? NEVER!!!

Celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada

The news has been inundated with the realities of genocides all over the world, but rarely is Canada included in that list.  A little dose of TRUTH is in order to get a proper perspective.

Prior to the European arrival, millions of various tribes existed across Turtle Island with their system of bartering, governing that worked for them.

Columbus’ “discovery” of the land, was affirmed by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, when he issued the infamous “Doctrine of Discovery” that stated that empty lands “terra nullius” “discovered by European Explorers, became the property of the Crown.  In fact, these lands were inhabited by millions of peoples comprising one fifth of the world’s population at that time. They just happened to be non-Christian and were therefore deemed to be uncivilized and hence the term “terra nullius” or empty lands.

The mentality incurred by the Doctrine of Discovery paved the way for our Indigenous peoples to be horrifically treated due to the policies of the First Prime Minister of Canada by establishing the Residential School system which was specifically launched “to get rid of the Indian problem” and prevailed from the 1870’s to the 1990’s in which more than 130 Residential Schools were established and run by many of our churches.

The “savages”, a term used by Duncan Campbell Scott, were deemed to be subhuman (Indian Act in a plain-language summary). Colonizers attempted to assimilate them into European culture through the residential School System and by the 60’s Scoop when the children were ‘scooped up” and placed into European settler homes. It is estimated that there were even more Indigenous children in the child welfare system than the 150,00 that were in Residential Schools.

The past Chair of the TRC, the Honourable Murray Sinclair’s words ring so true for today:

“it is education that got us into this mess, and it is education that will get us out of it.”

One of the first steps to “getting us out of this mess” was the submission of the TRC 94 Calls to Action 94 Recommendations of the TRC report of 2015. It was carefully drawn up after the Commissioners interviewed thousands of abused survivors and it is estimated that 6000+ died in residential schools.  This is a significant number. This is a genocide. Truly the darkest part of our Canadian history.

Perhaps this is best summed up by Connor Sarazin in the June Kairos times Newsletter:

“Over the course of history there have been acts of genocide from one nation over another on a global scale. Although, you may not see the struggles of Indigenous Peoples regularly on the nightly news. The Indigenous Peoples remain in a fight for their survival. Many communities don’t have running water, never mind being drinkable. Many communities don’t have hydro and rely upon diesel generators for power. Children must travel hundreds of miles away from their home and community to get a high school education, and there are more children in care than at the height of the Indian Residential Schools. It is an alarming rate of epidemic proportions that women, girls and 2Spirit Peoples are murdered and go missing every day. It is easier to erase a people when they have no women.

Words like genocide are used to describe other nations around the globe who are fighting for their survival. We tend to forget that the struggle for the First Peoples on our own land carry these same words and have so for hundreds of years.”

On June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day, may we recognize and celebrate the history, heritage, resilience and diversity of First Nations, Inuit and Métis across Canada.

-Sister Kathleen Lichti, CSJ

Cabrini: the Movie

“What the world needs now, is Love Sweet Love”, some of us may remember this song of Burt Barcharach and Hal David that came out in 1965. As the song says, “It’s the only thing there’s just too little of... No, not just for some, but for everyone...”

Yes, this world needs so much love as we come to a turning point where love is being replaced with hatred, bullying, xenophobia, violence against anyone who is “different” than the white male Caucasian.  Women are belittled, Indigenous peoples in countries world-wide are looked upon as being subhuman or inhuman, hence are treated as if they have no value. People who are homosexual or transgender are not even considered to be human.  What is the criteria for dismissing a human being? Too many politicians exhibit an unconscious or perhaps even conscious assumption that some people in this world are not human...and this is in supposedly educated nations.  Shame on us if we remain silent, for therein is our consent.

Enter, “Cabrini” the movie about a young Italian woman who dared the powers of Church and state to say “no” to the dream of a better world for all.

Not only does the movie take the “religiosity” out of religion, but inserts an interesting dynamic between: women and the men who hold power, Italian immigrants and U.S. citizens, a tribal worldview and an inclusive one, the rich and privileged of New York City, and the poor in the slums.

Frances Cabrini, born in 1850, had only a few years to live because of a compromised lung condition she acquired when she almost drowned as a child. She founded her own Religious order because she was rejected by established orders due to her ill health.  The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, under Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, felt called to the far east to minister to the poor and forgotten. The movie “CABRINI”, graphically depicts how 6 women were able to effect major change in the hearts of the citizens of New York City after having been commissioned by Pope Leo XIII.

Upon arriving in New York the women experienced firsthand, the plight of the Five Points Slum district in which Italian immigrants lived isolated from the rest of the citizens of NY City (“Rats have it better”, described their condition)

The Institute of The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus established seven homes and a free school and nursery in its first five years. Its good works brought Cabrini to the attention of Giovanni Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, and of Pope Leo XIII.[2]

In 1889, at the suggestion of Pope Leo XIII, the Sisters came to New York, and opened convents in the Archdioceses of Chicago, Denver, Newark, Seattle, and Los Angeles and the Dioceses of Brooklyn and Scranton.[3] In 1892 they established Columbus Hospital in New York City,[4] which later became Cabrini Medical Center and operated until 2008.

Perhaps the compassionate viewer is able to appreciate these times in which the movie was produced and the actual tenor of the day in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. We saw in the portrayal of Mother Cabrini a woman spurred on by intense love for the orphans and abandoned of her society. We also saw how anger fuelled her passion to embrace those who had no love.  Anger and love provided the energy Mother Cabrini needed to accomplish all she did.

-Sister Kathleen Lichti, csj

Image: Felix Mooneeram/Unsplash

Getting to Know You

June is Indigenous History Month, and Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21) is a time all to honour the cultures and contributions of Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis).

As I was reflecting on what I wanted to put into this blog, the song “Getting to know You came to mind.  It is the one that Julie Andrews sang to the children in “The King and I”

Perhaps some words of the song can apply to our growing relationship with Indigenous peoples.  It has been and is a process of “getting to know” each other and “getting to know what to say” when entering into the Indigenous ways of knowing.

June 21st is National Indigenous Peoples Day in which we honour the Indigenous peoples, Elders and ancestors to commemorate the Indigenous culture, language, land and ways of being.

It was first self-declared Indian Day in 1945, by Jules Sioui and chiefs from across Turtle Island (North America). In 1982, the National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations) called for the creation of a National Aboriginal Solidarity Day to be celebrated on 21 June.

Sometimes, critics say of the indigenous Peoples that “they need to get over it” when the topic arises about the residential School system, the “60’s scoop”, the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, 2 spirit, and gender diverse people (MMIWG2S). “Getting over it” is not what it is about. Journeying together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous/settlers through those painful years of history is what it is about.

It is important to remember, not forget what has happened and continues to happen in the unjust treatment of Indigenous peoples.

It is about re-member-ing.  And to better understand at a heart level what was done TO the first peoples when the settlers came. We all are called to re-mem-ber that we are one people with diverse ways of being, knowing and enriching each other.

By journeying together in openness, respect, humility, love, truth courage, honesty and wisdom, we can come to a new united people on this land.

Healing must be part of the process of being reconciled, being one.

The colonizer needs to be healed from the shame that exists about what the early colonial ancestors did. Education about the true history of colonial and Indigenous relationships is absolutely necessary, followed by a commitment not to have this treatment repeated.

Many of the First nations Peoples do not even know the truth of their past, because Residential School survivors never spoke of their experience.  When the truth is told, there is more of a chance of reconciliation.

The peoples of the 14th and 15th Century, Indigenous and colonizers, were taught by the Doctrine of Discovery, that the first peoples were savages, inferior.  They believed it of themselves, and the colonizers were thereby justified in taking the land and resources.

Healing for the Indigenous involves dealing with the anger, sense of loss, frustration, through the various Indigenous ways of healing. 

The colonizers also need healing, through education and by ensuring that what was done so cruelly in the 14th century to the present, is never repeated.

Forgiveness is an act of the Creator, where restoration to a new order happens after the victim is able to remember the atrocities, and to choose to move beyond the anger even to a point of forgiveness of the wrongdoer. (see pp. 17-19, 11 in The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies by Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S

Once the wronged Indigenous person can forgive, the wrongdoer can be moved to express true sorrow and reshape his/her actions.

So, on this day of honouring the Indigenous peoples of this part of Turtle Island, called Canada, let us embark on a journey together.

For example, some of the opportunities available to us as non-Indigenous, are attending a POW WOW...these are open to the public; visit a friendship Centre; attend webinar or a Teaching and Sharing circle online, visit a reserve in your area.

“Getting to Know You” begins with Education.  In the words of former Senator, Murray Sinclair,

“It is education that got us here, and it is education that will get us out.”

-Sister Kathleen Lichti, CSJ

Generous Listening

Finally, attention to the almost-lost art of listening! September 26th being the National day of Listening, I thought it might be appropriate to focus on how we are called to listening to what Indigenous voices are saying to us these days as Canadians.  To what are we listening and what are we really hearing about Residential Schools, about murdered and missing women, men, girls and boys?

What are we really hearing and believing from Indigenous Elders who are survivors of Residential Schools? What is heard? What is heart-felt? What is the message in the revealing of hundreds of graves found on the grounds of former residential Schools? Are we brave and sufficiently honest to acknowledge this dark history of Canada that was one form of cultural genocide?

Krista Tippett says of listening: “Generous Listening is an everyday art and virtue, but it’s an art we have lost and must learn anew. Listening is more than being quiet while others have their say. It is about presence as much as receiving; it is about connection more than observing. Real listening is powered by curiosity. It involves vulnerability — a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. It is never in “gotcha” mode. The generous listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own most generous words and questions.”

In being present to  Indigenous Knowledge Keepers who have committed themselves to truth telling, I have found from my own experience that it requires of me, the listener, to be open minded, eager to learn the truth, respectful, and have the ability to create an atmosphere of hospitality and to provide a safe environment.  When that happens, relationships begin to develop, because of the mutual respect that grows.

If one has already made up one’s mind about Aboriginal people, true respectful listening cannot happen. One is simply unable to move the shared intellectual truths from the head to the heart. For any steps toward reconciliation to happen, the heart must be affected. 

The Doctrine of Discovery, promulgated in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI, has done incredible harm to the valuing and appreciation of the First Peoples of any land, and especially, in this case, of Canada.

Thankfully, THAT doctrine has been definitively denounced.

The scar tissue left from this doctrine has left a deep wound that is in need of healing. We, non-Indigenous people, need to be healed from our ignorance and arrogance, our shame and shock.  Indigenous peoples need to healed from the belief that they are inferior, less than, and hence are not worthy to be in relationship with all creation and to share the resources of the earth equitably.

If one opens one’s heart in this listening process, one discovers that the First Peoples of Canada have a deep respect for the land, for all creation.  “All my relations” is not just an idle phrase.

For us non-Indigenous people especially, but not totally, there is a useful resource available for further assistance in developing relationships between First Nations peoples and us non-Indigenous people.  It is the guidebook put out by the Jesuit social forum: A Guide to Listening to Indigenous Voices .

Ideally, it is very workable with an Indigenous person or more, to be in these Sharing Circles.

The time is now. The place is here.  Let’s move forward together in creating a more just and sustainable world.

 - Sister Kathleen Lichti, csj

Images provided from Unsplash: Jonathan J. Castellon | Lee Campbell

Listening Loudly

Unsplash photo/Nick Fewings

To borrow the invitation from a hearing aid company, is it time for Canada to “Listen”?

To what are we called to listen in light of the hundreds of unmarked graves discovered on the grounds of former residential schools? The unmasking of this reality suggests that the general public has been deafened and deliberately prevented from hearing the voices of the Indigenous peoples of this land. This needs to stop.

It is interesting to note how “listening” seems to be a theme that is emerging on several fronts:

Pope Francis leads a meeting with representatives of bishops' conferences from around the world at the Vatican Oct. 9, 2021. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

““Those of us who have benefited from colonization have a responsibility to address the system that has enriched us by stealing the land and lives of Indigenous Peoples. The first steps in this process are to listen deeply to what Indigenous Peoples are saying to us, to open ourselves to be transformed by their words, and to act based on what they are telling us to address injustices.” ”
— These are the words of Associate Professor & Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice Deborah McGregor, an Anishinaabe from Whitefish River First Nation, Birch Island, Ontario.

From just these few examples, we can appreciate that listening is absolutely necessary for a nation, for a Church, to move toward reconciliation and transformation.

So, let’s listen up with open minds and hearts and see if what we hear moves us to genuine action for a better Canada, a reformed Church, and a personal transformation.

-Sister Kathleen Lichti