The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Church shows support for Indigenous neighbours
SYDNEY — A Sydney church that has been the target of recent vandalism is responding with a show of support for its Indigenous neighbours struggling with the recent recovery of children's bodies at former residential school sites across the country.
William Legge, the minister of Hineni Church, formerly known as the Cape Breton Harvest Community Church, and church member Vince Penny hurried to attach a new sign, which says Standing With Canada's Indigenous Peoples, God Heal Our Land to the wooden posts outside their church to the sound of honking from passing cars as the last rays of sun peaked through the trees on Thursday evening.
On the front brick wall on either side of the entrance to the church, the faint remains of 215, spray-painted in red, were still visible after church members tried to wash it away earlier in the week.
A few weeks earlier, the same message – 215, which references the number of children's bodies located on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, was spray-painted twice on the side of the church and quickly pressure-washed away by church members.
“We thought that was sad,” said Legge.
“But we understand the offence and the hurt some people are feeling, but we also see that there's an element of trying to use it to divide people and you can never heal when people tear off the scab and use vengeance toward these things.”
Legge acknowledged that he doesn't know who vandalized the church or what their intentions were, but he saw it as an opportunity to “show the love of God and help promote healing.”
This is not the church's first experience with vandalism — in 2018, several basement windows were smashed with rocks. The police investigated but no charges were laid.
Hineni Church is located in the former Roman Catholic St. Anthony Daniel church on Alexandra Street in Sydney. The church, built in 1963, was home to the parish until 2014 and was vacant until Legge and his wife Rosie bought it in 2015 and started the non-denominational community church.
The Catholic church was one of the predominant religious organizations that operated the residential school system, which forcibly removed First Nations, Inuit and Métis children from their homes and communities and placed them in the institutions where many suffered abuse and died under the watch of nuns and priests.
In a recent online survey of 1,539 Canadians by Léger, a polling and market research firm, and the Association for Canadian Studies found that 66 per cent of respondents held the church responsible for the tragedies that took place at residential schools, while 34 per cent said the federal government was to blame.
The prime minister has called on the Pope to apologize on Canadian soil for his church's role in residential schools. Pope Francis stopped short of an apology in June but said he was pained by the 215 children recovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which was run by the Catholic church from 1890 to 1969.
Legge, the Whitney Pierborn minister of Hineni, a Hebrew word that means "Here I am," was raised Roman Catholic and attended the Midwest Bible College in southern Illinois over 20 years ago. He and his wife, who is from Louisbourg, have started a number of churches since then in both Canada and the United States and after spending 13 years in Chicago, saw the decline in the number of churches in Cape Breton and came home to found what is now Hineni Church.
“We came to our faith here and we knew we owed everything for that, for the way our lives turned out, and we wanted to come back and give back to the community and try to make a difference in the twilight of our ministry,” Legge said.
The new sign, written in white and orange, the colour that represents residential school survivors and victims, also includes the Canadian Native flag, designed by Kwakwaka'wakw artist Curtis Wilson, which depicts salmon and an orca to symbolize unity and hope for the future.