Reconciliation comes after understanding and acknowledgement

The peal of church bells ringing throughout the country on June 11 marked more than the National Day of Reconciliation and a year since Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for Canada's part in residential schools.
It was also the recognition of an improving relationship between Christian churches and First Nations people.
With the Pope's statement of sorrow in April, the Catholic church is the final institution to acknowledge its role in the harm perpetrated on residential school students in Canada, but as many Aboriginal people said after the statement of Pope Benedict XVI, 'those are just words.' They don't mean that parishioners fully understand or appreciate that it takes more than words to reconcile them with Aboriginal peoples across the country.
"The history we share of exclusion, of great racism on the Prairies, still exists," said Archbishop James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Weisgerber was instrumental in bringing about a private audience between representatives from the Assembly of First Nations and the pontiff.
Weisgerber grew up in Saskatchewan. He, like many others of European descent, saw those who worked in residential schools as heroes, dedicating their lives to bringing Christianity to a lost people.
"We didn't see the down side of what was being done," he admitted.
Not only were Natives systemically stripped of their culture, their language and their religion, but many children were physically and sexually abused.
Many who died in residential schools were buried in unmarked graves. According to government records, more than 150,000 children attended 120 residential schools over a period of 120 years. More than half of those children died while at school or shortly after returning home.
Work towards reconciliation has begun with the apologies, issued not only by the churches but by Prime Minister Harper on behalf of the Canadian government. There has been financial compensation. And soon there will be work undertaken by the newly re-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
But reconciliation needs to go beyond the leaders and into the church pews.
Rick Chapman is an ordained Anglican minister and a member of the Inner City Pastoral Ministry, which works in Edmonton's downtown, ministering to the underprivileged. Along with regular services held at the Bissell Centre, which provides for some of the city's poorest, Chapman connects with his charges on the streets.
The average churchgoer, said Chapman, does not understand that healing goes beyond the settlement cheques many residential school survivors have received.
"People in the pews are saying, 'How come we had to pay all that money? And now that we've paid all that money, we're done right?'" said Chapman.
It's been 16 years since the Anglican church led the way by issuing a formal apology for the treatment of Aboriginal people in that church's residential schools. The Presbyterian church followed in 1994 and the United church in 1998. The Canadian government didn't issue its apology until June 2008.
"There's a big gap in knowing the experience of Aboriginal people within the non-Aboriginal culture and within Canada as a whole. Canadians don't understand the experience of the Aboriginal people," said Chapman.
Dialogue will lead to understanding, but acknow-ledging the value of the culture and traditions is doubly important. That was no more obvious than when Anishinaabe Elder Tobasonakwut Kinew was able to display his traditional spiritual symbols during the private audience with the Pope on April 29.
"(Elder Kinew) had them all spread out and he asked the Holy Father to bless them and the Holy Father did that. It was a question of reaching out," said Weisgerber. When the Catholic church started its relationship with the Aboriginal people 200 years ago in Canada, church officials didn't take the time to understand the significance of that culture's symbols, said Weisgerber. "(Church officials) are doing that now and we're more open to that now."
Chapman has served in the far north of Canada where he's been immersed in the Aboriginal way of life.
"I believe Native traditions and spirituality have a lot to speak to in terms of Christian values," he said. And the church plays a role in promoting that understanding.
"This is about our society, not just the church. But the church is a major player within our society and we have a great, great role here," said Weisgerber.
Weisgerber points to the "Returning to Spirit" program established by Aboriginal psychologist Marc Pizandawatc, an Algonquin from Kitiganzibi First Nation, and Ann Thompson, a sister of St. Anne, from British Columbia.
Through that program, small groups of Aboriginal people and church people gather separately to learn about trust, letting go of issues and moving forward.
"They come together for a third time, all of them. It's an amazing understanding of reconciliation," said Weisgerber.
Chapman noted that the Anglican church is embracing the role of change in a number of ways, including in Kenora North, Ont., where the large Aboriginal population has led to the training of Aboriginal people as clergy. There has been a shift in roles in the church, said Chapman.
"(The church is) in the position where we can help people deal with (racism)," agreed Weisgerber.
Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Phil Fontaine is in agreement with that assessment. Following the April audience with the Pope, Fontaine said the "terrible lack of knowledge and understanding of Indigenous people in Canada" has led the AFN to work with the churches to get the message out.
"One of the things we have to do is educate and inform Canadians. We need the support of fair-minded people. They will only support us if they know us," said Fontaine.
The AFN is working informally with the churches to do outreach with local First Nations, as well as with AFN offices and regional chiefs to discuss activities that will promote understanding and reconciliation at the grassroots level.