'I just wept,' says Metis deacon after papal apology

Steve Callaghan, a deacon with St. Kevin's Roman Catholic Parish in Val Therese, said Pope Francis' apology to Indigenous people is a "real start towards walking together" following a ceremony outside of Edmonton. 

Callaghan, part of the Metis Nation delegation from Ontario, read the liturgy of the word for Pope Francis Tuesday afternoon during the papal visit to Lac Ste Anne, a Catholic retreat centre, 75 kilometres west of Edmonton.

Callaghan, who said his maternal grandmother "lived in fear of the government person, the religious person" taking her kids away to residential school, was also on hand Monday to hear the pope's apology to residential school survivors.

"I wasn't expecting to be moved the way I was," Callaghan said. "And when I heard the apology, when we heard the apology many of the people around me were overcome with emotion, and I just wept."

Pope Francis delivered the apology Monday in Alberta at the site of the former Ermineskin residential school, one of the largest in Canada, as he started what he called his "penitential pilgrimage."

"I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities co-operated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools," he said.

'A healing within me,' Callaghan says

Callaghan, an ordained deacon, discovered his Metis roots in his 40s. He said it was difficult at times to reconcile the two sides to his identity – the side connected and devoted to the Catholic church, and his Metis culture.

"I started to recognize that as an Indigenous person and a member of the clergy there was kind of a division within myself," Callaghan said. "All of a sudden this apology made it okay to be both, and it was sort of like a healing within me," he said.

He added that Pope Francis' apology was a "good start."

"I had the impression that at different times throughout history, the church wasn't walking with the people," he said. "It was walking past, or even the walking on."

"It was like, now we can walk together. Now we will commit to walking together," he said. "I'm really anxious and looking forward to that whole process, which has just begun. And it will take a long time for that healing to to be complete, if it ever is. But at least there's a commitment to start."

Reconciliation is possible.- Steve Callaghan, Deacon with Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie

Working with St. Charles College, a secondary school in Sudbury, Callaghan also said that he developed a rapport with Indigenous students, and saw first-hand the effects of intergenerational trauma. 

"I had noticed among First Nations people, students and then their parents during parent-teacher interviews…there was always sort of a sideways glance or distrust," he said. 

"I do wear the collar, the Roman collar, the church man kind of thing," Callaghan said. "But it wasn't until I was able to make relations with the students…that the parents warmed up to me."

Callaghan said he recognized the intergenerational effects of residential schools – a fear, he said, carried in the students' and parents' faces. It was the same fear he recognized in his own grandmother. 

"Finally, they would eventually get to know me," he said. "As I warmed up to them, they warmed up to me."

"So reconciliation is possible."