Bishop Anna's Pastoral Letter (Feb 18)

Click the above link to donate to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.

Friends,  

‘Namgis First Nation has started its inquiry into the former St Michael’s Indian Residential School grounds located on Cormorant Island.

We have been aware for many months of the community’s intention to proceed with the work of examining the former grounds for potential burial sites. But, today, as they begin this work in earnest, I am calling on Anglicans of these Islands and Inlets to join me in the following:

1. Repent:
   

   It was us, Anglicans of these islands, who managed and operated St Michael’s Indian Residential School. What took place there is our intergenerational responsibility to bear.
   
   Considering the judgement rightly laid upon the church, we are called to a collective and personal change of mind, heart and action, so that we do not repeat the sins of our past, and instead live fully into our baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being.  
   
   

2. Learn:

    
   The history of residential schools is well documented.
   Commit yourself to learning this history.
   You can begin by reading about it on our diocesan website. 
   The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action must, for us, be committed to our collective memory as a guiding document for the work we do together. Please read it (whether for the 1st time or the 10th), paying particular attention at this time to the calls to action for faith communities.
   I also encourage you to take part in an upcoming offering of the diocese’s Intersections: A Dialogue Series to better understand the racist history of this place we now call British Columbia.
   
   

3. Listen:

    
   Seek meaningful ways to make space for, and to hear, the voices of Indigenous peoples and what they are calling for from us, as a church and as people of this place today.
   
   

4. Pray:

    
   The people connected to St Michael’s have suffered, generation after generation.
   
   The work they are doing together will, with God’s help, bring some healing, but that healing has and will come at a great cost, in the retraumatizing of survivors and their families.
   
   Pray for these innocent ones. The ones who have died, the ones who walk in the shadow of these deaths, and those who are walking the path of healing and hope for themselves and for their people.  

During its operation, children were taken to St Michael’s from 45 First Nations.
Here are the names of the children documented as having died at St Michael’s. You may wish to remember them and their families in your prayers, as a way of focusing your heart and mind on the human lives involved.

• Mona—Between January 1, 1902 and December 31, 1903
• Samson Harris—January 12, 1923
• Thomas Mason—September 19, 1925
• Alfred McKay—January 1, 1932
• May Nysok—April 9, 1932
• Lucy Gordon ca.—January 1, 1933
• Sophia Edgar—Between May 1, 1939 and May 31, 1939
• Samson Edgar—Between May 1, 1939 and September 30,1939
• Eva George ca.—1944
• George L. Humchitt—August 30, 1944
• Reggie Allan—May 20, 1948
• Molly Irene Moon—August 23, 1961
• Andrea Helen Alfred—June 4, 1965
• Douglas Benson—Unknown
• Jackie Archie James—Unknown  

As you pray, remember that prayer must not be for us a trite gesture.

We are called to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

Too often the church mixes this up and does kindness instead of justice.

Our prayers must be accompanied by acts of justice, loving kindness, and true humility.  

5. Work to transform the unjust structures;
- challenge violence of every kind;
- pursue peace and reconciliation;
    (4th Mark of Mission) 

As much as the residential schools are a tragic part of our legacy, many of the underlying structures and attitudes that led to their creation persist.

The project of dispossession of Indigenous land, culture, language and life, have directly benefited settler society, and institutions like ours.

Systematic racism and structural injustice are such that Indigenous children and youth in BC are:

• 16.8 X 
  more likely to be “in care” than non-Indigenous children and youth;

•  7 X 
  more likely to live with food insecurity than non-Indigenous children;

•  86 X 
  more likely to die in a fire than non-Indigenous children.

These are some current unjust realities that demand our action and advocacy.

We must resist the temptation to relegate the horrors of residential schools to a dark chapter in our collective past, and instead respond with faith in action.

This means using our voices—our privilege-- to call out and call on those with the power to change policies, laws and legislation that perpetuate the harm.

We are a long way from a world in which every child of God shall ‘sit under their own vine and their own fig tree and no one shall make them afraid’ (Micah 4:4).

For now, these are tangible ways in which we can walk alongside the ‘Namgis First Nation in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

With God’s grace, may we be agents of truth-telling, healing and transformation.  

+Anna