Anglican Church plans to issue apology
Former minister’s abuse of boys was ‘horrendous,’ ‘massive in scope,’ church says
“They gave him a role as a priest and they gave him a plane for him to be able to fly around to our communities.” GRAND CHIEF ALVIN FIDDLER NISHNAWBE ASKI NATION
The Anglican Church of Canada has announced-that it will make a formal, national apology to all the victims of notorious pedophile Ralph Rowe.
It is estimated that Rowe, a former Anglican minister, abused hundreds of victims.
The Anglican Church has never issued a formal apology. One of the communities Rowe targeted was Wapekeka First Nation.
Wapekeka is struggling after two 12-year-old girls died by suicide earlier this month. The community has tried to manage youth mentalhealth issues and suicide epidemics for decades.
“Yesterday, Jan. 19, the Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), Alvin Fiddler, noted that the Anglican Church of Canada shares responsibility for the crisis in the communities he serves and especially for the tragic number of young people who have died by suicide,” Michael Thompson, the church’s general secretary, said in a statement issued on Friday.
Rowe, a clergyman who used to pilot a small plane into remote northern First Nations communities in the 1970s and ’80s, targeted young boys aged 8 to 14. Many indigenous parents trusted Rowe because of his position in the church and let their children travel on camping excursions with him. Rowe was also a Boy Scout leader.
“What people need to know is the church enabled him to do this,” Fiddler said. “They gave him a role as a priest and they gave him a plane for him to be able to fly around to our communities. We now know through our counselling agencies in the north and through the court systems — the estimates are during the 22-year period he was up here that he sexually assaulted and abused over 500 young boys during that time.”
He likened the lasting trauma to the residential school experience, noting, “We are now we are seeing the intergenerational impact (on) these victims.”
In the statement, the church acknowledged their past actions helped create a “legacy of broken- ness” in some First Nations communities, but said they want to renew a dialogue with indigenous people that will help them “understand more deeply and act more effectively on our responsibilities.”
Thompson was travelling on Friday and could not be reached for comment.
“We know that Grand Chief Fiddler’s call to our church and to our government to live more fully into our obligations comes from a heart that is broken by the tragic deaths of children,” the statement said. “Whatever our words, we will only have honoured that grief when we act and we look to him and to others to help us direct our actions in ways that will help end the crisis in the communities he serves.
“Ralph Rowe’s abuse was massive in its scope and horrendous in its impact, and we owe a debt of gratitude to those who with great courage have borne witness to that abuse, and continue to help us understand our moral obligation as the Anglican Church of Canada to support initiatives that address its continuing consequences.”
Most of the communities Rowe fre- quented are in NAN, a political organization of 49 First Nations in northern Ontario. Many men have struggled to get on with their lives in the wake of the abuse; many others, Fiddler says, have not been able to cope and have taken their own lives.
Wapekeka First Nation, 600 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, was one of Rowe’s communities.
Earlier this month, two 12-year-old girls, Jolynn Winter and Chantell Fox, took their lives while four other girls had to be flown out of the remote community for fear they would also take their lives. Another 26 students are being monitored and are considered at “high risk” for suicide.
The church did engage in mediation with one of Rowe’s communities, Wunnumin Lake First Nation, in 1996. And the Anglican Church of Canada’s Healing Fund has supported healing initiatives in other First Nations in the Sioux Lookout area, such as Kingfisher Lake and Sachigo Lake. Fiddler has sought an apology from the church for years.
“After reaching them a number of times, I appreciate their effort reaching out to us to work with our communities and to do a formal apology for all the victims; and for them to acknowledge their role in all of this is encouraging,” Fiddler said.
In 1994, Rowe was convicted of 39 counts of indecent assault on15 boys.
He was sentenced to six years in prison, but served only four and a half years. Part of his plea deal meant he was protected from facing more charges of a similar nature.