Vivian Ketchum's letters in the July/August issue seem an unfair criticism when the overall situation is considered. Political correctness currently rules out witnessing for the faith of our fathers, so the sacrificial effort on the part of residential schools staff doing the best they were able under the circumstances is recklessly denigrated as faulty. In actuality, the churches of the day were requested and/or required to care for the native children, many of whom were rescued from privation and potential starvation. It is incongruous to thus blot the record after the fact for faithful servants years after they have passed on.
When the Canadian government was settling with alleged victims of church custodianship, Alberta Report reported that the legislation ruled out permission to ask for proof that the cheque recipients were ever at the school in question, much less substantiation of harm suffered. Taxpayers were thereby indiscriminately gouged. It was unreal!
The church does injustice when it goes along blindly with perceived one-sided aggression. It would be ridiculous to presume that no abuse was perpetrated, but to paint all with disgrace is inhuman to the extreme, as I see it. Many native people were blessed by the salvation message imparted, but that is brushed aside as depriving them of their own practices and beliefs, which had let them down when rescue was offered.
