Indigenous as well as Catholic leaders condemned the recent incidents of church vandalism in Canada, including the “suspicious” burning of Catholic churches.
In the province of Alberta, a fire was put out in the morning hours at the Siksika Nation Catholic Church. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported that they believe the fire had been set deliberately.
Four Catholic churches located on tribal lands in British Columbia were razed. An Anglican church was also found to be on fire weeks ago, but the fire was extinguished and caused only minor damage. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police says the fires are “suspicious,” but local leaders believe them to have been intentionally set.
Around 4 a.m., the historic St. Ann’s Catholic Church on the Chuchuwayha reserve in British Columbia was discovered to be on fire. At about 4:45 a.m., a Catholic Church on Chopaka land in the province was reportedly on fire. The Church also burned down.
The fires followed the destruction of two other Catholic churches on tribal lands in Canada. At about 1 a.m. Sacred Heart Church in Penticton Indian Band in British Columbia was discovered to be on fire; two hours later, a fire was reported at St. Gregory’s church about 25 miles away in the town of Oliver, on the Osoyoos Indian Band.
At St. Paul’s Co-Cathedral in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, vandals recently spray painted the words “We were children” and made red handprints in paint on the doors. The vandalism was believed to have followed an announcement that more than 750 unmarked graves were discovered at the site of a former residential school on Cowesses First Nation land in Saskatchewan.
The country’s residential school system, and the Catholic Church’s involvement in the system, has come under intense public scrutiny following the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children at a former Catholic-run residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia.
Recently, Cowesses First Nation leaders announced that 751 unmarked graves had been discovered at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School. Leaders emphasized that the discovery was of unmarked graves, and not a “mass grave site.”
The residential school system was set up by the federal government beginning in the 1870s, and was overseen by Catholics and members of Christian denominations. The Catholic Church, or Catholic religious orders, ran more than two-thirds of these schools. First Nations and other Indigenous children were separated from their families and sent to the schools as a means of forcible assimilation, to strip them of family and cultural ties. The last federally-run residential school closed in 1996.
Since the reports of the discoveries, some Catholic churches in Canada have been vandalized or set on fire. Some First Nations’ leaders recently called on Catholics to skip Sunday Mass in protest of abuses.
