Can a Catholic priest possibly offer any words of value about residential schools?
This space, The Wellness Almanac, has been a secular space from the outset. Its dedicated to wellness and community, and while I personally believe that spirit is an important part of my overall wellness  the balance of body, mind, emotions, and spirit  its personal and complex and Ive mostly left it outside the space. There are a lot of ways to invoke Mystery. So Im a bit confused to be feeling compelled to share this sermon, that was delivered by a Catholic priest on June 6 and shared online and posted to Macleans magazine, because I didnt really want to centre the voices of Catholic priests, when, if were listening to anyones voices right now, it should be those weve been steadily ignoring since they told us their stories. I didnt want to entrench the powerbrokers and endorse their faux apologies. But it was shared by my friend on Facebook, and because she has often led me to important perspectives through articles she has shared, (thank you Tanina), I opened the tab, and this morning I read it, and I was so taken by the straight-talk, that I wanted to share it. We dont have many people in our society today whose job it is to hold a moral centre to be like the daycare teacher, who helps nudge and guide and encourage, and bring us back to the basic rules of community and interaction. My maternal grandparents attended church every weekend, and I dont ever recall them as being religious people, there was nothing performative about them  I suspect that they went, as much as anything, for the music (definitely for my Pa) and the community and possibly for the chance to be reminded how to think as a we instead of as an I. Who are capable of saying, oh theres a lot of grey in the world, and compassion is a good default, because we cant ever know what people are experiencing or where theyre coming from, and who are also capable of saying, there are lines that shouldnt be crossed, because theyre clearly wrong. And in order to feel any sense of orientation, of up and down and left and right and meaningful versus meaningless, we NEED to hear clear and kind people say, this is wrong. Thats beyond the bounds. Im not suggesting that contemporary churches or religions are the place to find that kind-hearted clarity or guidance on how to be more we than I in our moving through the world. Its been too long since I attended one, to be able to fairly say. But I do feel a need to be sung back to community and kindness, on a regular basis. Not to be preached at, from above. But to be called to circle, from among and I feel, as I read Paul Bringlesons words, that hes speaking from among a community, and hes putting words to a lot of things Ive felt, which has basically, for me, boiled down to WTF. One priests message to the church: Shut your mouth and just listen  Father Paul Bringleson spoke to his congregation in Flin Flon, Man., in a powerful sermon apologizing for residential schools and calling out the failures of Catholic Church leaders  By MacleansJune 8, 2021  Shoes are placed on the lawn outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School on June 4, 2021 (Darryl Dyck/CP)  Last Sunday, Father Paul Bringleson of St. Anns Roman Catholic Church in Flin Flon, Man., delivered a homily about the Catholic Churchs role in residential schools in Canada, and notably, its failure to apologize and account for its horrendous visible sin. His message to bishops: You sit there in your offices knowing that you embody a legacy that we are discovering every year is filled with racism and hatred. Father Bringlesons sermon, which he posted on YouTube, ends with an apology to Indigenous people, and a message to church leaders: Take off your robes, your shoes, and your rings and your crosses. Sit yourself in a chair. And listen. Listen. Listen until it hurts. And keep listening.  Since the discovery of a mass grave in Kamloops, B.C., a number of people within the Catholic Church have expressed disappointment and anger over the Churchs response. Here are Bringlesons remarks, which stand out for their forcefulness and as a call to action to other priests:  Perhaps like many of you, I spent a good portion of this week without being able to help but hear, listen and read as the discovery [in] Kamloops of the former residential school filled itself out even more. I was taking a few days alone at my cabin, mostly because I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole thing. And I find it nice to be alone sometimes when Im that frustrated. I dont think Ive had a day this week that I havent been sick to my stomach. You cant help but read whats on social media today. You cant, as much as sometimes we say we shouldnt put a whole lot of time and effort into it. And believe me, there is definitely no small shortage of negativity and distortion that can be on there. But if you ever want to get a real pulse of where people are at, generally speaking, its not a bad place to start. One particular statement that stuck with me like a gut punch on Wednesday came from Charles Adler. Many of you might be familiar with him, older people anyway. I started listening to Charles when I first moved to Manitoba back in 1989. He was at CJOB in Winnipeg. I find him a very easy listen. Hes a very open-minded individual whos allowed himself to be changed by experience that he lives. And by the experience, more importantly of others. He had a comment on Wednesday that just hit me right in the stomach. And its going to hit you, too. One of the expressions that was found to be discovered in the early days of the residential school inquiries that took place over 20 years ago, was a recurrent phrase in both church and government documents that the goal was to take the Indian out of the child. Charles Adler commented that it seems that the priests took the Christ out of Christian. And hes right. Hes absolutely right. I cant explain how this happened. I cant explain the history of how it unfolded. I cant explain it at all. I cant even explain our churchs response to it really clearly and articulately. And I dont think Im alone as a priest in being able to acknowledge that. I think we have bishops and priests that can fake it. But I think at the real core of all of our lives, there is a powerlessness here that we just simply dont have the words. I cant help but think, I cant help but think that even though I dont fly airplanes, and Im not a pilot, if I see a plane in a tree, I know something went wrong. I dont have to be an expert in church history, with the mission of Christ, to see that we as priests, and as religious, as a church, we did it wrong. And were still doing it wrong, in many ways. Twenty-one years ago, when I became a priest, the psychologist that I was seeing at the time, he looked me in the eye and asked me really, if I wanted to be a priest, and he told me face to face, Paul, youre going to suffer, because you dont fit in. And Ive never really felt that I fit into the Catholic Church, at least the institution. My first love has always been God and God in people. And all I ever wanted to do was to make God real in peoples lives, to show people what I discovered. But part of being able to do that requires us to be very rigorously honest about who it is we really are as people in the church, that we are as sinful and as flawed as the people we consistently call out and condemn. Thats been a steep learning curve. For me that came 12 years ago, when I had to get sober, I had to look at my failings as a priest, and the sin of my life as a priest. And it wasnt an easy path to take. And I have all kinds of opinions on that, that, that [are] too long to get into here. But I think its safe to say that what we have done isnt working. Or at the very least, its not working as well as it can, or as well as it should. None of this is an accident. This was deliberate, decisions were made, choices were made. And those decisions and those choices were deliberately covered up. And I have a share in that even though I wasnt alive, and I wasnt there. As a priest, I have a share in that. And that makes me angry. Because I can take responsibility for what I do in this life. But its very hard and unnatural to take responsibility for what others may have done in Gods name, a name and a mission that I share today. And so I do have a moral responsibility to acknowledge it, when I see it. To say what it is, for what it is. Father Paul Bringleson  I think one of the hardest things as priests is being able to sit in the woundedness of someone else, really without saying a thing. And yet, thats really, thats really how anything heals. And the church. The church that we live in today is not the church of 50 years ago, in spite of how many bishops and priests we have today thinking that its so. And if anything that this pandemic has taught us is the church has shifted, and beautifully and wonderfully so. And that the bishops and priests need to catch up with that. Not try to recreate something that no longer lives. Ive listened to statements this week come out from all corners of the church. Some of them have been beautiful and compassionate, and others are just plain out of touch. The statement that came from the Conference of Catholic Bishops was one of the weakest gutless statements I think Ive ever read. We need to call that out for what it is. It boils down to thoughts and prayers. Its not enough. And there have been meagre attempts at that. But its clear from what were discovering today that that has not been enough. It hasnt been enough. Were not getting it right. My alcoholism gave me a great gift of reminding me when I had to take a moral inventory of my own life, and then share it with someone else. That that was the beginning of a real change. And I call upon priests in our country to do that moral inventory, where you can with courage, and youre going to find shame. And youre going to find things that you are guilty of. Acknowledge them. Youll find that, by and large, people are willing to hear it. And then we let people talk. Part of making an amends in AA is expressing our contrition and saying Im sorry. And then the very next part is shutting my mouth and allowing the people I hurt to have their say, no matter how long it takes, no matter how humiliating that is. Thats the least we can do as a church. It is not for us to tell Indigenous peoples, its time to move on. You dont tell a victim when their suffering is over. You sit with that pain. And despite every human instinct, you have to respond to it and to say something to all the what-about-isms, shut your mouth, and just listen. Thats what Ive had to do all week. And its not nice, its not pretty. There are some that are quick to say, you dont have to apologize, you werent a part of that. Look at your life, youre thats crap. If theres suffering that I can see, and suffering and pain that I know about, that I hear, and then able to experience, I have a moral obligation as a disciple of Christ to be present in that pain. As a good friend of mine is always fond of saying, Paul, you dont know shit from Shinola. And I dont. But I know enough to recognize a hurting people. And I know enough now to shut my mouth and listen, to call upon my brothers in the priesthood to do the same. Its no secret that the church has lost a lot of moral credibility, long before the discovery of this grave in Kamloops. And sadly, I believe what theyre saying, there will be more. I dont know how that happened. It goes against everything we as a church hold dear: the dignity of the dead. I cant imagine making a choice deliberately to cover that up for any reason. And so we have lost our credibility. Bishops still write these beautiful, long letters that are all in the head. Bishop, no one reads them anymore. No one reads them anymore. Youre reminding us about our moral lives every day of the bloody week. Youre reminding us how evil abortion is and how I cant love a man or a woman cant love a woman. How gay men and women cant be married and how they cant have children. Youre telling us that were missing mass on Sunday to spend time with our families is a sin. And all the while you sit there in your offices knowing that you embody a legacy that we are discovering every year is filled with racism and hatred. It cant continue, not in the way it has. Our communities, specifically in our own country ,have grown more polarized over the years, and especially in this last year, were insulated. We surround ourselves with people who are like minded. And I can think of no greater example of that than the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church. Some of these bishops and priests dont get it because they dont want to get it. They dont understand that peoples lives have changed. And that condemnation no longer works. Shaming people no longer works when we ourselves are guilty, of horrendous visible sin. It begins with us being able, to be willing to sit with the valid and justifiable pain and horror of a whole nation of people in this country. And to listen to it, even though its painful to hear, because thats where the real growth of redemption that you and I talk about as priests every week, thats where that redemption begins, is in the hearing of the hurts as they were, and without trying to minimize them or deflect them or justify them in some other way. We were and are wrong. This cant continue. And this is happening in the Catholic Church in Canada. As long as we only listen to the people who show up, the church will never be where it was called to be. We need to risk living in our shame. Without looking for a ready answer. Without looking for calming words and thoughts and prayers. We need to allow Indigenous people to know that in spite of everything, were still going to be here, and if the church collapses physically from thisgood. Much of the world doesnt have churches like this, and their faith grows. Because priests are present in the lives of all people. Not just the churched. And the ones we have cajoled into praying and into remaining. There will be a reckoning. And I know that we have in this country good men who are willing to inspire and guide the rest of us. And I call on them to hold their brothers accountable. I call on them not to write a bloody letter. But to get up in front of people, like Im doing this morning, without notes, speak from the heart. And tell your people, tell anyone who will listen that youre sorry. Dont say you understand because you dont. I dont understand. But I know what pain is. And I can understand that. And I understand that in the lives that I feel pain that no one could tell me to get over it. So dont expect Indigenous people to get over it. Walk with them, accompany them in their anger and let the anger flow. It has to. It has to in order for the real gospel to be felt and to be experienced. My dear bishops, my dear priests. We no longer have authority, moral authority, over our people. Stop kidding yourself like you do. You dont. Take off your robes, your shoes, and your rings and your crosses. Sit yourself in a chair. And listen. Listen. Listen until it hurts. And keep listening. Only then, only then will we ever have a shot at healing. I am only pastor of St. Anns in Flin Flon. To Indigenous people here in my care, in my past, throughout our country I, Paul Bringleson, a priest of the most holy Roman Catholic Church, apologize. We failed you. Its time for us to be truly accountable with that, and for that. For those who have left the church over this, Im sorry. For those who stayed, Im sorry. We need you. The church is better off with you than without you. We dont give up on a family member. Dont give up on the gospel. Even though weve had a piss-poor way of representing Christ over many years in our country, there are those of us who want to stay, to be a part of your life in whatever way we can, in whatever way you want to. Help us to understand. Call us to accountability. To members of my own parish and parishes that are listening to this, hold your priest accountable. Challenge your bishop to talk and to listen. Knights of Columbus, Catholic Womens League of Canada, write those letters that youre always so famous for writing about every other blessed social justice issue on the map. Write your church a letter asking for your priests and bishops to be present to Indigenous peoples without reservation. And ask them not to write another letter. Ask them to leave their office and get out onto the street and sit amongst the people whose hearts we have broken, whose dignity we have robbed and whose lives we have betrayed. Only then, only then, will healing truly have a chance of being the reconciliation that the gospel of Jesus Christ demands of us. via https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/one-priests-message-to-the-church-shut-your-mouth-and-just-listen/