CANADA
CBC News
Jorge Barrera · CBC News
Apr 25, 2018
When the Ontario Provincial Police raided the Oblates of Mary Immaculate offices in Ottawa in 1995, they seized a number of documents including a file containing a memo written in Latin and addressed to the order’s leadership in Rome.
The memo concerned a member of the order who was associated with St. Anne’s residential school in Fort Albany, Ont.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has claimed in recent weeks, in defence of a statement that Pope Francis could not “personally respond” to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s request for an apology for residential schools, that the Catholic Church itself could not be blamed for the abuses committed at the institutions.
The conference says the schools were run by 16 dioceses and about 36 orders independent of the direction or responsibility of Catholic Church, represented by the Pope in the Vatican.
Yet, the OPP records along with historical files reveal that the Catholic hierarchy in Canada, from the cardinal level down to the bishop, were deeply involved with residential schools and their fingerprints are even found in the Indian Act.
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