Oblates to open Rome archives next month for residential school records search

First time a Canadian researcher granted access to Oblates archives in Rome

By Olivia Stefanovich

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) plans to begin a search as soon as next month in the archives of a Roman Catholic order that ran 48 residential schools in Canada, including the institution in Kamloops, B.C., where last year more than 200 unmarked graves were discovered.

A Catholic entity that ran residential schools in Canada will soon open its archive in Rome, bringing some hope to survivors searching for records.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) plans to begin a search as soon as next month in the archives of a Roman Catholic order that ran 48 residential schools in Canada, including the institution in Kamloops, B.C., where last year more than 200 unmarked graves were discovered.

Raymond Frogner, head of archives for the NCTR, will be visiting the Rome archives of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to review and digitize residential school-related records.

It’s the first time any Canadian researcher has been granted access to the Oblate General Archives.

“It’s quite a wild card,” Frogner said. “We’ve been told there’s correspondence there and other documentation, but we are still a bit in the dark of what is held there.”

He said the NCTR is still negotiating with the Oblates to access the personnel files of priests and residential school staff. He said the Oblates are seeking restrictions around records from those members who are still alive.

Frogner said the long-term goal is to have everything open for research, access and use.

The Oblates have so far provided more than 40,000 files to the NCTR through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but the discovery in May 2021 on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School led the order to seek this agreement, said Rev. Ken Thorson, leader of the Oblates in Canada.

Rev. Ken Thorson, leader of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Canada, said the order has a significant contribution to make to ensure the truth of the residential school experience is known as part of the healing process.

“The Oblates have been moved by the events of the last year,” said Thorson, who is based in Ottawa.

“It was my feeling that we should ensure that every document that might be related to the residential school history should be made available.”

‘These documents do not belong in Rome’

Thorson acknowledged that the Oblates have a significant contribution to make to ensure the truth of the residential school experience is known and to facilitate a deeper understanding of this history as part of the ongoing healing process.

“This is the most important work that I’ve been given to do as an Oblate leader,” he said.

Thorson said the Oblate archives in Rome, which are separate from the Vatican archives, could contain letters from missionaries to religious leaders about their work.

Evelyn Korkmaz, a survivor of the former St. Anne’s Residential School, has repeatedly called on the Roman Catholic Church to release all residential school records.

Residential school survivor Evelyn Korkmaz said she is hopeful the agreement between the NCTR and the Oblates will reveal more information about St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont., which the Oblates ran and she attended from 1969 to 1972.

“It’s time to open that door of horrors and take a look at what’s inside,” Korkmaz said.

“These documents do not belong in Rome. They belong here, in Canada.”

Records can’t have any restrictions, survivor says

Korkmaz says she wants to make sure other Catholic entities, including the Vatican, release all residential school records in their possession, adding that there should be no restrictions on the files.

“We need to know information on priests and brothers or nuns who have passed away,” Korkmaz said.

“But we also need to know of the priests or nuns or cardinals, whatever, that are still alive today because those ones are the ones that are continuing to do damage.”

Frogner said that records still held by the Oblates in Rome are vital to the work of the NCTR, which was created to be the main repository for the documented history of the residential school system in Canada.

More documents identified in Canada

Frogner said the NCTR has already identified Oblate records held by its archives in Canada, including more than 1,000 boxes held in Alberta. The centre is working to access those records through a separate research agreement with the Catholic entity.

More than 1,000 other files are located at the Société historique de Saint-Boniface in northern Manitoba, while other documentation is held at the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, he said.

Before Frogner goes to Rome, an Indigenous delegation from Canada is heading to the Vatican for meetings with Pope Francis.

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Grey Nuns of the Cross ran the former St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont.

The delegates are expected to appeal for an official apology from the Pope for the Church’s role in running residential schools and press for the disclosure of more records, which they have discussed with the NCTR.

Korkmaz said she would acknowledge a papal apology, but it wouldn’t mean much to her because it would be “hollow words.”

“I’m more concerned about the documentation than an apology that he’s forced to say,” Korkmaz said.

“What would mean more to me is bringing those documents back to Canada.”

Complete Article HERE!

Pope rules baptised lay Catholics, including women, can lead Vatican departments

Italian lay woman Francesca Di Giovanni, who was named by Pope Francis as the first woman to hold a high-ranking post in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, is pictured at the Vatican, December 23, 2013

By

Pope Francis introduced a landmark reform on Saturday that will allow any baptised lay Catholic, including women, to head most Vatican departments under a new constitution for the Holy See’s central administration.

For centuries, the departments have been headed by male clerics, usually cardinals or bishops, but that could change from June 5 when the new charter takes effect after more than nine years of work.

The 54-page constitution, called Praedicate Evangelium (Preach the Gospel), was released on the ninth anniversary of Francis’ installation as pope in 2013, and replaces one issued in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

Its preamble says the “pope, bishops and other ordained ministers are not the only evangelisers in the Church”, adding that lay men and women “should have roles of government and responsibility” in the central administration, known as the Curia.

The principles section of the constitution says “any member of the faithful can head a dicastery (Curia department) or organism” if the pope decides they are qualified and appoints them.

Under the 1988 constitution, the departments – with a few exceptions – were to be headed by a cardinal or bishop and assisted by a secretary, experts and administrators.

The new constitution makes no distinction between lay men and lay women, though experts said at least two departments – the department for bishops and the department for clergy – will remain headed by men because only men can be priests in the Catholic Church.

The department for consecrated life, which is responsible for religious orders, could conceivably be headed by a nun in the future, the experts said. It is now led by a cardinal.

In an interview with Reuters in 2018, the pope said he had short-listed a woman to head a Vatican economic department, but she could not take the job for personal reasons.

ROLE OF LAITY ‘ESSENTIAL’

The new constitution said the role of lay Catholics in governing roles in the Curia was “essential” because of their familiarity with family life and “social reality”.

Francis also merged some offices, created a new one to oversee charity efforts, and set up a new order of importance.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which includes lay people and abuse victims, appears to have been given more institutional influence by being incorporated into the doctrinal department, which decides on sanctions for priests convicted of sexual abuse.

But one of the commission’s original members, Marie Collins of Ireland, said on Twitter this could hurt its independence.

While the Secretariat of State kept its premier position as administrative, coordinating and diplomatic department, the centuries-old high status of the doctrinal office was placed below that of the department of evangelisation.

The pope will head the evangelisation office himself, highlighting the importance he gives to spreading and reviving the faith.

Francis has already named a number of lay people, among them women, to Vatican departments.

Last year, he for the first time named a woman to the number two position in the governorship of Vatican City, making Sister Raffaella Petrini the highest-ranking woman in the world’s smallest state.

Also last year, he named Italian nun Sister Alessandra Smerilli to the interim position of secretary of the Vatican’s development office, which deals with justice and peace issues.

In addition, Francis has named Nathalie Becquart, a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters, as co-undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, which prepares major meetings of world bishops held every few years.

Complete Article HERE!

Demonisation of LGBT people in state-funded Catholic schools is unlawful hypocrisy

Southwark Diocese recently cancelled a school visit from an author because he is gay

It is hard to know anymore how one should react to yet more pontification from the Catholic church regarding homosexuality.

Contemptuous silence? Outrage? A snort of derisory laughter because, after all, there is something almost comical about a bunch of lace-by-day-and-leather-by-night men, clutching their Grecian 2000 and swishing their surplices indignantly, while denouncing gay people from deep inside their clerical closets. More of which later.

This time, it’s Southwark Diocese, where John Fisher boys school is located. The headteacher and board of governors arranged a visit from author Simon James Green.

Green is gay and, as if that’s not enough to make him burn, has a book for young people with – Les Dawson whisper – an actual gay character in it and some sensitive handling of LGBT issues. The Diocese cancelled the visit, sacked some governors, promised retribution against the disobedient in the coming weeks, then claimed to be taking “a stand against tyranny”, which is a bit like Putin claiming to be on a peacekeeping mission.

The tyranny of what? The existence of gay people? The existence of equality legislation?

But the real dark humour behind all this is Southwark Diocese’s own past. Their seminarians attend St John’s, a troubled joint if ever there was one, according to students who have contacted me over the years.

The problem is hypocrisy, not homosexuality

In the 1990s, St John’s had a moral theologian who became quite renowned. He wrote philosophy books, had a liking for scarves by the luxury Italian designer Ferragamo, and was a fan of the singer Cher. (There’s a clue right there, dear reader.)

In 1998, he was a keynote speaker for the Catholic church at an event on human sexuality but, after that, you don’t find too many references to him. Maybe because he subsequently left and lived as a woman. And we wouldn’t want to talk about that, would we?

Good luck to her. The problem here is not homosexuality or transgender choices. It’s hypocrisy.

Photo of wooden pews
Richard Sipe estimated that 50% of priests were sexually active, and 30% or more were gay

The late Richard Sipe, an American ex-priest who spent years researching priestly celibacy globally, estimated that 50% of priests were sexually active at any one time, 6% were paedophiles, and up to half were gay. “A conservative estimate of gay Catholic clergy is 30%,” he wrote in an article in 2012, “[But] many Vatican insiders speculate that the accurate figure is closer to 50%.”

God loves you, brothers and sisters. You are made in His likeness. Unless you are gay, in which case he thinks you are intrinsically disordered. Hard to know why so many clergy parrot that line, given how many of them are homosexual.

What does banning a gay author achieve?

As a journalist, priests have told me about rent boys, sex in parks, gay saunas in Paris and “insider” gay parties attended by even senior clerics with trusted friends. Love and commitment were off limits, but stranger-danger thrills could be followed by confession and some pompous public pronouncements to cover the tracks.

Having attended a convent school, it’s the teenage boys at John Fisher School that I feel sorry for; those who struggle with shame and guilt and depression because they are told – even from those hiding in clergy closets – that they are sick and shameful.

What did they think Green would do in his book-related visit? Issue a gay sex manual?

As for Simon James Green, he didn’t even rate a mention in the church’s published comments. He was nothing, cancelled out of existence, ostracised like some biblical leper.

What did they think Green would do in his book-related visit? Issue a gay sex manual? And what would they achieve by banning him? The eradication of homosexuality? “Expecto patronum!” As Harry Potter would say. That should do it.

Breaching equality legislation

You might expect a little more Christ-like kindness. You would certainly expect more humility from a church riddled with sex scandals. Cardinal Keith O’Brien. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Countless paedophile scandals in every country where Catholicism exists.

But, no sooner are they knocked off their public soapboxes than they jump right back on again as if nothing has happened, trying to seize the old moral high ground while the trickles fall from their bloodied noses.

Photo of cardinal in church
Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned after multiple allegations of inappropriate and predatory sexual conduct

The church has nurtured a sense of being “other”, both legally and morally. The Vatican is legally an independent state, with its own leader. It has its own – corrupt – banking system, implicated in fraud yet again recently in the Swiss banking scandal. Even its own diplomatic corps.

But John Fisher is a voluntary-aided faith school: the state pays its running costs. If the church wants to ignore equality legislation, perhaps the appropriate reaction is to make clear that the state will no longer pay to allow a scandal-ridden organisation to breach its equality laws on the grounds of “faith”.

Complete Article HERE!

1st German Catholic diocese allows women to perform baptisms

By The Associated Press

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Essen has become the first in Germany to allow women to perform baptisms, citing a lack of priests.

The diocese said in a statement Monday that Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck tasked 18 lay ministers —17 of them women — with conferring the sacrament of admission into the Church at a ceremony over the weekend.

Until now only priests and deacons — functions the Catholic Church reserves for men — were allowed to perform baptisms.

“Time and again, the Church has reacted to external circumstances over the past 2,000 years,” said Theresa Kohlmeyer, who heads the diocese’s department of belief, lithurgy and culture.

The measure is temporary and will initially last for three years.

Jamaican bishop calls for repeal of sodomy law

The retired Anglican bishop of Kingston, Jamaica, the Right Rev. Dr. Robert Thompson, has called for the repeal of Jamaica’s anti-gay “buggery law”.

Retired Bishop Robert Thompson

by Colin Stewart

Retired clergyman says sexuality and gender in all of its forms are gifts from God

Retired Anglican Bishop of Kingston, the Right Reverend Dr Robert Thompson has called for the buggery law to be repealed.

And he has urged persons interested in that becoming a reality to agitate for that to be done.

He made the calls at Wednesday’s launch of Intimate Conviction 2, hosted by the HIV Legal Network, Anglicans for Decriminalisation and its Caribbean partners, in Jamaica.

However, Reverend Thompson stressed that in addition to the law being repealed, people in society must be more open to each other, despite differences in sexual orientation.

“Our sexuality and gender in all its diverse forms are gifts from God that should be celebrated rather than classed as sinful or shameful things that distract from our holiness or our spiritual growth,” he contended.

“Instead of seeing LGBTQ individuals pejoratively . . . as sexual deviants, we can experience them as equally loved by God and capable of [enriching] lives in communion with the divine in all its forms. Christian sexual ethics fails badly when it ignores the body’s grace as the authentic medium for intimacy.

“You cannot have intimate conviction or even a conversation about intimacy, and exclude the body,” he added.

The retired Bishop also suggested that it was not for the authorities to pronounce on sexuality.

“We assume that there is an area of human experience called sexuality which is of immense importance, something which needs to be sorted out before anyone can claim to be leading a mature and fulfilled human life. And isn’t this part of the problem where, in fact, people in authority feel that they have a right to sort out others who may or may not be having conflicts about their own sexuality?” he questioned.

“The world of Jesus and Paul would not have recognised such a task as being central to their message of the Gospel. They knew about marriage as complicated bundles of family arrangements, they knew that young males were most likely to resist promptings towards sexual involvement and generally did their best to stop it. However, they would have been puzzled to see all this brought together under a single heading or to be asked about their sexuality.”

Laws that criminalise consensual same-sex intimacy still exist in more than 60 countries, including in the Caribbean.

Complete Article HERE!