The day the Pope said sorry

When my father Tobasonakwut Kinew was a boy, he was taken away from his mother and father and placed in St. Mary's, a Catholic residential school in Rat Portage, Ont. From then on he was forced to navigate this world on his own.

By the time he was kicked out of St. Mary's in the early 1950s at the end of grade 8 (because Indians were not allowed to attend the high school in Kenora), the removal of his younger brothers had caused his family to unravel.

Along the way, my father was forced to endure physical and sexual abuse at the hands of lay brothers, priests and nuns, and to grow up in a dormitory and schoolyard with rage-filled predators who had endured the same type of treatment as he had.

The most damaging incident, and perhaps the most telling, came when his father died.

My grandfather was the original Wabanakwut, my namesake. On an October day when my father Tobasonakwut was 11 years old, my grandfather was run over by a car.

He lay at in a hospital bed, his body half-crushed, as he waited for his boys to come home from school and see him. But the priest at St. Mary's and the head of Cecilia Jeffrey school (where one of the sons was living) refused to allow the boys to leave.

The next day my grandfather passed on to the spirit world. Following a Catholic service, he was interred at the cemetery down the hill from St. Mary's.

As is our custom, my father took a hand full of dirt, sprinkled some on his father's casket and sang his father's death song. But this display of aboriginal spirituality was perceived as insolence by the priest.

When the children returned to their schools an assembly was called. My father was called to the front and was promptly given, in his words, "the most supreme ****-kicking of my entire life."

It's unclear whether or not my grandfather rolled over in his freshly dug grave.

A meeting of faiths

From that point on my father was never really able to express his emotions in any manner other than anger or violence. A few years later, he walked out of St. Mary's a changed person, no longer the fun-loving boy he once was, but an intense, strong-willed fighter.

He would go to work cutting trees as a teenager and then wind his way through careers as a diesel mechanic, boxer and academic. Eventually he would become the founding Grand Chief of the Grand Council of Treaty #3 (which covers most of Northwestern Ontario and Southeastern Manitoba) and the Grand Chief of the Chiefs of Ontario.

A few weeks ago, at the end of April, he was part of the delegation that visited the Vatican and had an audience with the Pope.

When my dad was a boy in the residential school he was called a "maudit sauvage" and told he was worthless for trying to express his faith in the way his elders had taught him.

That he stuck around long enough to see the Holy Father tremble in his presence and appear visibly upset as he tried to make amends is, for me, monumental.

To me, it says that, in spite of the concerted efforts of the government of Canada and five churches to destroy our culture, it has survived.

It says that in spite of all the tragedies and pain that was visited upon the members of my family — my two older brothers who died tragically, one from a self-inflicted gunshot; my uncle who drank himself to death, confiding that he didn't have the courage to commit suicide; my cousins and niece who died from alcohol or drugs — that we have endured.

We can't blame all the deaths that have visited my family explicitly on the residential schools but I do think we can draw a line down through the generations: from my father's experience, to my brother's death, to my niece's overdose.

Gift of a feather

My father brought a pipe, an eagle feather and a dream catcher to his meeting with the Holy Father. For him, this was not merely a symbolic act, it was a bit of a test.

In the past, these types of spiritual items were outlawed in Canada, their use associated with Satanism and, as the story about my grandfather's funeral illustrates, justification for serious punishment.

My father had decided in advance that if the Pope spoke kind words but still displayed an aversion to the spiritual items that his apology would not be sincere. On the other hand, were his Holiness to receive the spiritual items in a kind way, then it would signify that the true mentality of the Catholic church had changed.

When the time came, the Holy Father passed the test with flying colours. He displayed a respectful curiosity, coming straight to my father and asking what the pipe was for, how it was used and what its origins were.

My father asked the Pope to bless the items, which he did. He graciously accepted the eagle feather as a gift of fellowship in return.

I hope all Christians get the word that his Holiness has accepted our traditional religion as being a good thing. There are communities, I know, in Manitoba where aboriginal people have been so indoctrinated with Christianity and self-hate that they refuse to have sweats or even powwows on their land. I hope this changes.

I still find it amazing that the leader of the Catholic faith has embraced our traditional items and what appears to be true remorse at what residential school survivors had endured.

Yet the healing

Of course, no matter how heartfelt, the Pope's apology does not mean healing, at least not instantly.

My father returned from the Vatican elated and yet with a renewed awareness of what had happened to him as a child.

His pain and suffering have now been validated by the Vatican and the government of Canada. But his memories and suppressed emotions have surfaced again and he has been forced to try to deal with them anew.

The stories I heard from my father as a boy are not unique. My aunt Nancy suffered a similar public flogging, though she was stripped naked and had her head shaved in the process. This was punishment for trying to run away from the school. My uncles have their own horror stories. So do the parents and relatives of my friends.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I am among the first generation in my family that didn't have to attend these schools.

I have a four-year-old son at home. He is the same age as my uncle was when he was taken away and put into St. Mary's.

I look at my son and see his gentle nature and his natural curiosity and I can't bear to think about what it would be like to have him taken away and subjected to the things my father endured.

I look at his fragile frame and growing body and wonder whether he could have survived the beatings that my father did. And then there are the things I don't think about.

Think about your kids and ask yourselves the same questions. The good news is that they will never have to face those things. All our children are now free to grow up in the manner we choose to raise them.

In the end, the residential school apologies are important to every Canadian because they are a testament that will remind us of the inherent goodness of children and the duty we have to stand up for them, for themselves as much as for ensuing generations.

The experiences of my father and the other residential school survivors will remind us of a phrase that my community has adopted from the Jewish community: Gaawiin Minawaa Wiikaa. Never Again.