The Knowing and the Christian Church

 In my ongoing commitment to greater understanding of Indigenous peoples I'm reading Tanya Talaga's lastest book, The Knowing, She examines the sorry history of Canadian relations with Indigenous peoples through her quest to find out what happened to her Anishnaabe great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter, buried in a pauper's grave in Toronto, as well as the subesquent generations of her family. 

There is also a chapter near the end about Talaga's trip to the Vatican in 2022 with the delegation of Inuit, First Nations and Metis representatives who met with Pope Francis. Some of them were Roman Catholic Christians, others were spiritual in the ways of their traditionsm some were both. Talaga took part as a journalist who is Indigneous even though she paid her own way, She wanted to be part of this significant moment in history.

She writes about the experience of being in the Sistine Chapel and viewing Michelangelo's depiction of  the Last Judgment. These magnificent scenes were being created around the time of first contact in the Americas by European explorers. She isn't a Christian herself but wonders about how the priests and other religious persons who abused children would be judged for their crimes -- would God sentence them to eternal damnation?  

They also spent time in the vast Anima Mundi (soul of the world) collection of cultural artefacts sent to the Vatican by missionaries from around the world over the centuries. While there is pressure to repatriate these pieces which are part of the spiritual and artistic heritage of different cultures there is resistance to doing so.  Talaga felt that while many of them were put on display for the benefit of this audience they were not treated with the respect they deserved. There was a meal served in the midst of this collection, a strange choice in itself, but Talaga and two other Indigenous journalists were asked to leave because they weren't part of the official delegation. 

At the conclusion of the visit Pope Francis expressed sorrow and shame and sought forgiveness:“It is chilling to think of determined efforts to instill 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...” 

Francis also admitted that the ways in which Indigenous persons were harmed was antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

All this was needed and no doubt sincere. Not only did the pontiff apologize at the conclusion of this multi-day meeting, he subesquently visited Canada to apologize in several settings across the country.Yet Talaga justaposes the evidence of immense wealth at the Vatican against the faltering efforts of the Canadian Roman Catholic Church to raise the millions committed for reparations.

There is so much that I honestly don't want to know, yet as a Christian I can't turn away