Shock and disbelief over church burnings
FIRST NATIONS LEADERS CONDEMN RASH OF CHURCH FIRES ACROSS CANADA
On the Siksika Nation reserve, about 95 kilometres east of Calgary, there are two churches about 15 kilometres apart for the 8,000 residents, one Catholic, the other Anglican. In the dark early morning — one on Monday, the second on Tuesday — someone tried to burn them both down.
It looks like Molotov cocktails of some sort were used, smashing a window and burning the window frame, but failing to spread flames deep inside.
“They were both intentionally set, no doubt about that,” said Tom Littlechild, director of emergency services for the Siksika Nation. “But both structures are very intact.”
The same cannot be said of some other churches.
Like everyone, Littlechild thinks he knows what might be behind the attacks.
“I'm aware of the fires at the other churches on reserves. It could be related.”
His thoughts are echoed by police at the RCMP detachment adjacent to the reserve, in the hamlet of Gleichen.
“Obviously, with the temperature rising across the country, that's at the back our mind. We can't ignore that possibility,” said RCMP Sgt. Scott Mercer.
How could he?
No one can ignore the possibility, even the likelihood, that a sudden rash of attacks targeting Christian churches and symbols in several provinces could be a backlash after the recent, agonizing discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of children at former residential schools run by the Catholic Church.
Five churches, some over 100 years old, were burned to the ground, starting with four in B.C.'S Okanagan Valley. The latest and the largest was in Morinville, Alta., on Wednesday, preceded by at least three smaller arsons, the two on Siksika land and a fire at the door of a vacant, century-old Anglican church in northern B.C. A church on First Nations land in Nova Scotia was also damaged by flames on Wednesday, as well as a historic Anglican church on Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ont., on June 12.
Dramatic red-paint handprints, mimicking the bloody hands of children, were also daubed on the doors of a cathedral in Saskatoon, on a statue of Pope John Paul II at a church in Edmonton, and on a statue of nuns in Regina.
“We have a pretty good guess this was done because of the Kamloops Indian Residential School and finding of the burial sites of 215 children,” said Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band.
The four Okanagan fires are south of Kelowna and the school is where many band members were sent over decades, including Louie's father.
“I can understand it,” Louie said of strong feelings against the churches that ran the compulsory residential schools across Canada. “I don't like the Church. I don't believe in the Church.
“Many residential school survivors hate the Church with a passion — but I have never heard any of them ever suggest people turn to this.
“There is a proper way of displaying anger. I mean, I'm angry about it. I talk to a lot of residential school survivors and sure, there is a lot of hatred and bitterness and anger — but that still doesn't mean you go and do arson.
“We think it is the same group of punks that burnt all of them down,” he said of the Okanagan fires. “And the young people that burned down these churches never went to residential schools.”
St. Gregory's Church, on a gentle curve of a remote stretch of Nk'mip Road, had the simple, graceful lines of an old rural church seen in movies; built around 1912 of wood planks painted white, it was fronted by a modest church tower, cut on each side by arched windows, and topped by a squat spire and simple white cross.
About 100 kilometres due south of Kelowna, B.C., it sat about halfway between Osoyoos, to the south, and Oliver to the north, surrounded by a white post fence that provided nothing in the way of security but pleasantly delineated its property from the rolling rustic land around it.
Only a handful of families still regularly worshipped there, Louie said, but it remained an active church.
At 3:10 a.m., on June 21 — National Indigenous Peoples Day — the RCMP detachment in nearby Oliver was called with alarming news that St. Gregory's was burning.
Some two hours earlier and 45 kilometres further north, an RCMP officer from the Penticton detachment was on patrol when he also spotted fire, this time spitting up from the Sacred Heart Church on the Penticton Indian Band reserve.
By the time he pulled up to the similarly styled wood church, set back 70 metres from Green Mountain Road with its spire barely poking through treetops, the building was fully engulfed in flames. By morning light, both churches had burned to the ground. Two more went to ashes the next weekend.
At 3:52 a.m. on June 26, the RCMP detachment at Princeton, B.C., was called about a fire at St. Ann's Catholic Church on the Upper Similkameen Indian reserve, about 125 kilometres west of the first churches.
Less than an hour later, the Keremeos RCMP detachment was alerted to a fire at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, built in 1885 and later moved to the Chopaka reserve of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band.
The bands expressed shock and disbelief at the apparent attacks on “landmarks and historical gathering places.”
“These churches represent places of worship for community members as well as gathering spaces for many for various celebrations and times of loss,” the Lower Similkameen band said in a statement. “It will be felt deeply for those that sought comfort and solace in the Church.”
The likely meaning behind the fires is not lost on those most intimately impacted by the legacy of residential schools.
“We understand the grief and rage felt by others across Indian country to support the discovery of unmarked graves at Kamloops,” the band statement said. “This is a symptom of the intergenerational trauma.”
The RCMP also knows what they are likely dealing with.
“We are sensitive to the recent events, but won't speculate on a motive,” said Sgt. Jason Bayda, spokesman for the Penticton South Okanagan RCMP.
On May 27, the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the old Kelowna school was announced, followed a few weeks later by 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School in southeastern Saskatchewan. The Lower Kootenay Band in B.C. reported Wednesday that 182 unmarked graves were found close to the former St. Eugene's Mission School. There are expected similar findings at other sites from more than 120 years of the government-sponsored, church-run system of forcibly sending First Nations, Metis and Inuit children to boarding schools, where many suffered serious physical and sexual abuse.
The announcements sparked renewed outrage; it is such a visceral and stark reminder of the horror of the system, bringing fresh, white-hot anger.
Sometimes, people with something to say who feel no one is listening turn to violence, according to Amarnath Amarasingam, a specialist in violent extremism and sociology of religion.
“They are not justified, of course, but these kinds of acts occur when some individuals feel like traditional modes of protest and activism have fallen on deaf ears,” said Amarasingam, an assistant professor in the school of religion and in the department of political studies at Queen's University.
The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations says he understands the rage, frustration and pain brought on by the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools, but funnelling that anguish into burning down churches will not bring justice.
“To burn things down is not our way,” Perry Bellegarde said Wednesday. “Our way is to build relationships and come together.”
David Chartrand, vice-president of the Metis National Council, said many Indigenous people are Catholic and the destruction of churches can confound trauma they are already experiencing.
Chartrand, who is to be part of an Indigenous delegation visiting the Pope later this year, said earlier this week that while an apology is needed, the Church continues to play an important role in the lives of some Indigenous people.
“There are customary processes that we've built into our culture around the churches.”
Littlechild, director of emergency services for the Siksika Nation, warned other First Nations to keep watch over their church buildings.
With Wednesday's suspicious fire in Morinville, north of Edmonton, that toppled the century-old Saint-jean-baptiste church described as the heart of the community, his alert will have to be sent far wider.
THERE IS A LOT OF HATRED AND BITTERNESS AND ANGER — BUT THAT STILL DOESN'T MEAN YOU GO AND DO ARSON.