 Pope Francis will make a pastoral visit to Canada from July 24 to 29, 2022. The Pope’s visit will provide an opportunity for him to listen and dialogue with Indigenous Peoples, to express his heartfelt closeness and to address the impact of residential schools in Canada. The papal visit will also provide an opportunity for the shepherd of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to connect with the Catholic community in Canada.
Given the vast landscape of our country, the limited time period for the visit and considering the health of the 85 year-old Pontiff, the Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will adopt three communities as a base for his Canadian visit: Edmonton, Quebec City, and Iqaluit. The locations will limit travel for the Holy Father while still allowing an opportunity for both intimate and public encounters, drawing on participation from all regions of the country. Specific programming and events will be confirmed approximately six weeks prior to the Holy Father’s arrival. Visit www.papalvisit.ca or www.visitepapale.ca for more information and to stay updated on the latest developments. Please continue to pray for the health of Pope Francis and for all those engaged in the ongoing healing and reconciliation journey. Please include these intentions in your prayers:
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Indigenous delegates from Canada and their families, friends, and supporters meet with Pope Francis in a final audience on April 1, 2022. Photo: ©Vatican Media
MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN CANADA
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Clementine Hall, Friday, 1st April 2022 | [Multimedia] Dear brothers and sisters, Good morning and welcome! I thank Bishop Poisson for his kind words and each of you for your presence here and for the prayers that you have offered. I am grateful that you have come to Rome despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic. Over the past few days, I have listened attentively to your testimonies. I have brought them to my thoughts and prayers, and reflected on the stories you told and the situations you described. I thank you for having opened your hearts to me, and for expressing, by means of this visit, your desire for us to journey together. I would like to take up a few of the many things that have struck me. Let me start from a saying that is part of your traditional wisdom. It is not only a turn of phrase but also a way of viewing life: “In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation”. These are wise words, farsighted and the exact opposite of what often happens in our own day, when we run after practical and immediate goals without thinking of the future and generations yet to come. For the ties that connect the elderly and the young are essential. They must be cherished and protected, lest we lose our historical memory and our very identity. Whenever memory and identity are cherished and protected, we become more human. In these days, a beautiful image kept coming up. You compared yourselves to the branches of a tree. Like those branches, you have spread in different directions, you have experienced various times and seasons, and you have been buffeted by powerful winds. Yet you have remained solidly anchored to your roots, which you kept strong. In this way, you have continued to bear fruit, for the branches of a tree grow high only if its roots are deep. I would like to speak of some of those fruits, which deserve to be better known and appreciated. First, your care for the land, which you see not as a resource to be exploited, but as a gift of heaven. For you, the land preserves the memory of your ancestors who rest there; it is a vital setting making it possible to see each individual’s life as part of a greater web of relationships, with the Creator, with the human community, with all living species and with the earth, our common home. All this leads you to seek interior and exterior harmony, to show great love for the family and to possess a lively sense of community. Then too, there are the particular riches of your languages, your cultures, your traditions and your forms of art. These represent a patrimony that belongs not only to you, but to all humanity, for they are expressions of our common humanity. Yet that tree, rich in fruit, has experienced a tragedy that you described to me in these past days: the tragedy of being uprooted. The chain that passed on knowledge and ways of life in union with the land was broken by a colonization that lacked respect for you, tore many of you from your vital milieu and tried to conform you to another mentality. In this way, great harm was done to your identity and your culture, many families were separated, and great numbers of children fell victim to these attempts to impose a uniformity based on the notion that progress occurs through ideological colonization, following programmes devised in offices rather than the desire to respect the life of peoples. This is something that, unfortunately, and at various levels, still happens today: ideological colonization. How many forms of political, ideological and economic colonization still exist in the world, driven by greed and thirst for profit, with little concern for peoples, their histories and traditions, and the common home of creation! Sadly, this colonial mentality remains widespread. Let us help each other, together, to overcome it. Listening to your voices, I was able to enter into and be deeply grieved by the stories of the suffering, hardship, discrimination and various forms of abuse that some of you experienced, particularly in the residential schools. It is chilling to think of determined efforts to instil a sense of inferiority, to rob people of their cultural identity, to sever their roots, and to consider all the personal and social effects that this continues to entail: unresolved traumas that have become intergenerational traumas. All this has made me feel two things very strongly: indignation and shame. Indignation, because it is not right to accept evil and, even worse, to grow accustomed to evil, as if it were an inevitable part of the historical process. No! Without real indignation, without historical memory and without a commitment to learning from past mistakes, problems remain unresolved and keep coming back. We can see this these days in the case of war. The memory of the past must never be sacrificed at the altar of alleged progress. I also feel shame. I have said this to you and now I say it again. I feel shame – sorrow and shame – for the role that a number of Catholics, particularly those with educational responsibilities, have had in all these things that wounded you, in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values. All these things are contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For the deplorable conduct of those members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God's forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry. And I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon. Clearly, the content of the faith cannot be transmitted in a way contrary to the faith itself: Jesus taught us to welcome, love, serve and not judge; it is a frightening thing when, precisely in the name of the faith, counter-witness is rendered to the Gospel. Your experiences have made me ponder anew those ever timely questions that the Creator addresses to mankind in the first pages of the Bible. After the first sin, he asks: “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). Then, a few pages later, he asks another question, inseparable from the first: “Where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Where are you? Where is your brother? These are questions we should never stop asking. They are the essential questions raised by our conscience, lest we ever forget that we are here on this earth as guardians of the sacredness of life, and thus guardians of our brothers and sisters, and of all brother peoples. At the same time, I think with gratitude of all those good and decent believers who, in the name of the faith, and with respect, love and kindness, have enriched your history with the Gospel. I think with joy, for example, of the great veneration that many of you have for Saint Anne, the grandmother of Jesus. This year I would like to be with you on those days. Today we need to reestablish the covenant between grandparents and grandchildren, between the elderly and the young, for this is a fundamental prerequisite for the growth of unity in our human family. Dear brothers and sisters, it is my hope that our meetings in these days will point out new paths to be pursued together, instil courage and strength, and lead to greater commitment on the local level. Any truly effective process of healing requires concrete actions. In a fraternal spirit, I encourage the Bishops and the Catholic community to continue taking steps towards the transparent search for truth and to foster healing and reconciliation. These steps are part of a journey that can favour the rediscovery and revitalization of your culture, while helping the Church to grow in love, respect and specific attention to your authentic traditions. I wish to tell you that the Church stands beside you and wants to continue journeying with you. Dialogue is the key to knowledge and sharing, and the Bishops of Canada have clearly stated their commitment to continue advancing together with you on a renewed, constructive, fruitful path, where encounters and shared projects will be of great help. Dear friends, I have been enriched by your words and even more by your testimonies. You have brought here, to Rome, a living sense of your communities. I will be happy to benefit again from meeting you when I visit your native lands, where your families live. I won’t come in the winter! So I will close by saying “Until we meet again” in Canada, where I will be able better to express to you my closeness. In the meantime, I assure you of my prayers, and upon you, your families and your communities I invoke the blessing of the Creator. I don’t want to end without saying a word to you, my brother Bishops: Thank you! Thank you for your courage. The Spirit of the Lord is revealed in humility. Before stories like the one we heard, the humiliation of the Church is fruitfulness. Thank you for your courage. I thank all of you! ______________________ Text courtesy of Libreria Editrice Vaticana A delegation of 32 Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors, and youth are meeting with Pope Francis this week (March 28 to April 1). Watch the media briefing and videos below. We will share more on social media as they unfold.
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Photos: ©Vatican Media
In 2021, Pope Francis invited the whole Church to a discussion of synodality. If the word takes you by surprise, you’re not alone. While the concept of synod, or church council, is not new, you won’t find synodality in a secular dictionary. The term was chosen by Pope Francis, whose papacy has often focused on evangelization. With synodality, the Pope is carefully placing evangelization into the hands of the Church’s people. From now until 2023, the pursuit of synodality calls Catholics to get together, to talk and listen, and to love and learn in a deliberate effort to move closer to Christ and the Church. On Tuesday, January 18, I was a humble participant in a synodal conversation with more than 90 clergy and lay leaders from parishes in one pastoral zone of the Catholic Diocese of Calgary. We met via Zoom to talk about Pope Francis’s vision and to meet the Diocesan team who spent months preparing for a host of virtual gatherings. After the pastoral zone meetings are done in early February, similar e-meets (and in-person whenever possible) will be held with lay Catholics. I plan to participate again. Bishop William McGrattan is optimistic that all of these prayerful discussions will shape the Church’s mission of service and proclamation of the gospel. Based on my experience, and several conversations the next day, I think he has reason to be hopeful. Why? Because we can’t un-spill milk.  Relationships require understanding Almost 30 years ago, my husband and I participated in a Marriage Encounter weekend. One of my biggest takeaways was the notion that healthy relationships require that we understand that it is impossible to un-spill milk. What’s happened matters. What happens next is even more important. I take that same concept into discussions of my experience with the universal Church. I won’t discuss confidential information shared as part of the synodal conversation. (Organizers did a great job of breaking us out into smaller groups.) I will say that I think it matters that Catholics, including lay members, are being asked, “How have you experienced journeying together as the Church?” For some of us, the question is fraught and the answers uncomfortable. But just like you cannot un-spill milk, I’m confident that a prayerful people, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not be able to unknow what they hear at meetings like these. Information changes people. It shapes new discussions. More than anything else, it demands care. In addition to being asked about our personal experience of the journey “as Church,” synodal participants are being asked what steps the Holy Spirit is inviting “us to take in order to grow in our ‘journeying together?’” Again, I think that’s a valuable question as it puts action back into the hand of the Church’s people. In addition to gathering information about these two questions, the very process strengthens the relationships fundamental to our parish communities. Several participants told me (or my editor) that they appreciated the opportunity to gather with people they know; an opportunity complicated by the global pandemic, yet aided by technology and, most obviously, the Holy Spirit. More importantly, feedback to me implies people felt empowered by the prayers and the discussions. They are already talking about their synodal experiences with Catholic peers. They are encouraging others to take part. Like Bishop McGrattan, they are hopeful. I take comfort in that hope, fueled as it is by two other theological virtues, faith and love. Written by Joy Gregory for Faithfully. Joy Gregory is a writer, cradle Catholic, and long-time parishioner of St. Peter’s, Calgary, where she’s been active in preschool catechism programs, RCIA, and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
 Media updates from CCCB: December 7, 2021 After careful assessment of the uncertainty and potential health risks surrounding international travel amid the recent spread of the Omicron variant, the Canadian Bishops, Assembly of First Nations, Métis National Council, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami have jointly decided to reschedule a delegation to the Vatican in December 2021 to the earliest opportunity in 2022. The decision to postpone was a heartbreaking one, made after careful consultation with delegates, family members, community leaders, public health officials and the leadership of each of the three National Indigenous Organizations. Particularly for many elderly delegates as well as those who live in remote communities, the risk of infection and the fluid nature of the evolving global situation presents too great a threat at this time. We take comfort in the desire, conveyed to us by the Holy See, that the safety of the delegation should inform any decision to move forward. It is also important to note that the delegation is postponed not cancelled. Currently, the world’s health experts are still learning about the transmissibility of the Omicron variant. As more information becomes available, we will continue to assess the feasibility of future travel plans, based on guidance from the Canadian government and relevant international authorities. Our shared commitment to walking together towards healing and reconciliation remains strong. We understand that the Holy See is very much committed to rescheduling this visit in the new year and we look forward to the opportunity for Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors, and youth to participate in private meetings with Pope Francis. For further information: Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops – communications@cccb.ca Assembly of First Nations – jamiem@afn.ca Métis National Council – jannav@metisnation.ca Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami – media@itk.ca Link to Media updates: December 2, 2021 Three Alberta indigenous leaders will be among the delegates traveling to Vatican City this upcoming December to meet with His Holiness Pope Francis as part of national healing and reconciliation efforts. “We as an indigenous community, we never gave up the need to heal,” said Chief Wilton Littlechild, who was chosen as a delegate by the Assembly of First Nations. “We are doing this and we are going. I think that is a willingness on our part …. We are going and that should be a message within itself. We are willing to work with this and with you. Please help us now. We are putting our hand out, meet halfway and let's shake hands. It is really important to show good intent.” Chief Littlechild, of the Ermineskin First Nation, is a former Treaty Six Nations grand chief and former commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Chief Littlechild has worked with the United Nations for more than 40 years advocating for indigenous peoples. He is a survivor of residential school. Two Alberta delegates, Angelina (Angie) Crerar and Gary Gagnon, were chosen by the Metis Nation. Angie is a Métis knowledge keeper and elder, from Grande Prairie. Angie has volunteered for more than 50 years. She has been a board member of the Grande Prairie Friendship Centre. She is president of the Metis Local 1990. She started an Elders Caring Shelter, the first of its kind in the country. She is a survivor of residential school. Gary Gagnon is a Métis from St. Albert (Metis Settlement). For more than 20 years, he has been employed with Edmonton Catholic Schools under the Indigenous Learning Services Program as a cultural facilitator. In 2018, Gary was elected as vice-president, Region 4 Metis Nation of Alberta Twenty five to 30 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors, and youth will meet with the Holy Father at the Vatican from December 17-20, 2021, accompanied by a small group of Canadian bishops. Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith, president of the Alberta and Northwest Territories bishops, and Calgary Bishop William McGrattan, vice-president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, will also travel to Vatican City. The delegates represent the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) and the Métis National Council (MNC). Further details of the delegation will continue to be made available through these organizations as well as the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). About the Alberta DelegationChief Wilton Littlechild
Wilton Littlechild IPC CM AOE MSC QC, known as Willie Littlechild, is an indigenous lawyer, advocate, residential school survivor and Cree chief who served as Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief, as Grand Chief of the Treaty Six and as a member of Parliament. Littlechild was born in 1944 in Maskwacis, Alberta, raised by his grandparents. He was brought to Indian residential school at the age of six, spending 14 years in the system until his completion of high school. Littlechild graduated with a Bachelor of Physical Education degree in 1967, then obtained a master's degree in physical education from the University of Alberta in 1975. He is the first Treaty Indian from Alberta to obtain a law degree, completed at the University of Alberta in 1976. That year, the Maskwacis Cree Nations bestowed on him with a headdress as an honorary chief and endowed him with his grandfather's Cree name, Mahigan Pimoteyw, which means Wolf Walker. Chief Littlechild was a member of the 1977 Indigenous delegation to the United Nations and worked on the UN and OAS Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He continues to work with the United Nations to this day. He was a Member of Parliament for Wetaskiwin from 1988 to 1993. Chief Littlechild is a member of the Ermineskin Cree Nation. In 2009, Littlechild was appointed as a commissioner to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada where he served for six and a half years. He has been inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. He has received the lndspire Award for law and justice, Pearson Peace Medal; four Centennial medals, the Order of Canada, the Order of Sport, three Queen's medals, and received six university doctorate degrees. Chief Littlechild and his wife Helen are most proud of their children Teddi, Neil, Megan, and Angel Tina, three adopted children, nine grandchildren and three great-granddaughters. Gary Gagnon Gary Gagnon is a Metis from St. Albert (Metis Settlement). For more than 20 years Gary has been employed with Edmonton Catholic Schools under the Indigenous Learning Services Program as cultural facilitator. Gagnon was seconded with the Archdiocese of Edmonton as coordinator of the Office of Indigenous relations in 2016 for a two-year term. In 2018, Gary was elected as vice-president, Region 4 Metis Nation of Alberta. Gagnon is a trustee for Lac Ste. Anne Pilgrimage. He sits as an Indigenous Advisor the Canadian Catholic Indigenous Council. He performs prayer and smudging rituals as Indigenous cultural volunteer with Sacred Heart of First Nations Peoples church in Edmonton and Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Enoch. Angie Crerar Angie (Mercredi) Crerar IS 85. She was born July 3, 1936 in Fort Resolution, NWT. In 1947, she was taken from her home and placed in residential school at Fort Resolution. For over 10 years, her Metis traditions, language, heritage, childhood and name were taken from her. She was known as number 6. Angie left the residential School when she was 17 years old. She and her late husband Doug Crerar have 11 children, 24 grandchildren, and 16 great grandchildren. Angie has volunteered for more than 50 years, celebrating her Metis heritage. She has been a board member of the Grande Prairie Friendship Centre. She is president of the Metis Local 1990. She started, fundraised and helped build an Elders Caring Shelter, the first of its kind in the country. In 1987, Angie was named Volunteer of the Year. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Esquao Awards, the Centennial Award from the City of Grande Prairie, a Caring Canadian award from the Governor General, Hometown Hero award from the City of Grande Prairie and the Queens Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2014, she was awarded with a city park in her name, called the Angie Crerar Park. Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith Richard W. Smith was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 28, 1959. He studied at St. Mary's University and at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. Ordained to the priesthood on May 23, 1987, he pursued further studies in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, earning a licence in 1993 and a doctorate in 1998. Pope John Paul II appointed him as Bishop of Pembroke, Ont. on April 27, 2002. He was formally installed as the seventh Archbishop of Edmonton on May 1, 2007, the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker. Archbishop Smith serves as president of the Catholic Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories, and he is past president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Calgary Bishop William McGrattan William Terrence McGrattan was born on September 19, 1956 in London, Ont. He received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Western Ontario, followed by a Master of Divinity from St. Peter’s Seminary in London. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 2, 1987. Bishop McGrattan continued his studies in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he received a licentiate in fundamental moral theology in 1992. He served on the faculty of St. Peter’s Seminary in London from 1997 until 2009. In 2009, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI appointed Bishop McGrattan as Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto. His appointment as the 12th bishop of the Diocese of Peterborough, Ont, took place on April 8, 2014. On January 4, 2017, Bishop McGrattan was appointed eighth bishop of the Diocese of Calgary, and was installed on February 27, 2017. Bishop McGrattan is the vice-president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.  The ecumenical Season of Creation is observed annually from September 1, the World Day of Prayer for Creation, to October 4, the Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi. Christians and peoples of faith around the world are invited to pray in thanksgiving for God’s gift of creation. This year, the Season of Creation occurs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that is impacting worldwide in ways that are inextricably interconnected to the care of creation and the health of humanity. The Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si, echoes this interconnection. “Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.” – Laudato Si, No. 91. In March of this year Pope Francis asked the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (“DPIHD”) to collaboratively create a Commission to communicate the Church’s concern for the human family facing the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, to reflect on the emerging socio-economic-cultural dynamics, and to research and propose timely approaches to move forward. In May, I was invited to be one of twenty participants from Canada and the United States to provide feedback to this newly formed Commission. The Dicastery has now established a Vatican COVID-19 Commission with five Work Groups:
In this time of pandemic, we are admittedly being challenged and yet history reveals that it is often in such times of adversity that the resiliency and determination of the human spirit emerges and through God’s grace, people of faith accomplish good works. In that spirit of confidence and hope, Pope Francis’ message reflects upon the theme for the 2020 Season of Creation, Jubilee for the Earth, as a time to remember, to return, to rest, to restore and to rejoice:
If these initiatives aren’t enough, we also have in this Season of Creation two events in late September and one in early October that call us to action, to conversion and renewal through the understanding and application of our Catholic Social Teaching. The first is the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Pope Francis’ message for the 106th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Forced like Jesus Christ to flee draws attention to the burdens faced by migrants and refugees and the responsibility to provide refuge. He states, “I have decided to devote this Message to the drama of internally displaced persons, an often unseen tragedy that the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated. In fact, due to its virulence, severity and geographical extent, this crisis has impacted on many other humanitarian emergencies that affect millions of people, which has relegated to the bottom of national political agendas those urgent international efforts essential to saving lives. But “this is not a time for forgetfulness. The crisis we are facing should not make us forget the many other crises that bring suffering to so many people.” The second is the release of an Alberta Bishop’s Pastoral Statement on the Impact of COVID-19 and the Call to Christian Renewal on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. It is entitled “Save your people, O Lord, and bless your inheritance”. There are reflections and resources that accompany the statement which are designed to promote dialogue on the social justice issues that have surfaced during the pandemic in light of the principles of our Catholic Social Teaching. The third event is the publication on the eve of the Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi of a new encyclical which will reflect upon the Catholic Social Teachings during the pandemic – teachings such as human fraternity, the equal dignity of all people, the preferential option for the poor, the common good, solidarity among all peoples, the responsible care of the environment, and the virtue of striving for justice and peace. Now more than ever we need to relate to one another as sisters and brothers in one global human family. We are called to recognize the responsibilities we have to each other, and take an active role in helping each person achieve their full potential. And in this Season of Creation, we are being called to live as responsible stewards of creation and thus to see the reflection of God in all of creation. God of love, show us our place in this world as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth, for not one of them is forgotten in your sight. Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live. The poor and the earth are crying out. O Lord, seize us with your power and light, help us to protect all life, to prepare for a better future, for the coming of your Kingdom of justice, peace, love and beauty. Praise be to you! Amen. (Pope Francis, Laudato Si, May 24, 2015)
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