NOTE: An open letter sent by a Residential School Survivor to Wilton Littlechild –
Wilton Littlechild,
What gave you the right to give a sacred headdress to the leader of a global entity that committed so much atrocities such as murder, rape and every other kind of abuses imaginable upon our children who were under their care and absolute control?
Do you realize how many Indian Residential School survivors, inter-generational trauma survivors and survivors of the many other atrocities such as the human trafficking and medical experimentation you triggered today with your shameless grovelling to that old man and how you are so willing to sacrifice your dignity (if you ever had any) and our sacred regalia to garner colonial and religious accolades. You triggered an unprecedented wave of anger across this land and you revictimized so many of us by gifting a headdress which is never meant to be a political propaganda tool. You and your circle grovelled to that old man begging for an apology when it should have been the other way around. Regardless of what you and your fellow collaborators say about the insincere rhetoric he “read” to Catholics worldwide, that little essay he read was a slap in the face and I cannot see how anyone could accept that as a sincere apology. Of course, the slap he delivered was smaller than the one you delivered by desecrating one of the most sacred components of our culture and regalia by placing it on that big head of your pope.
The sacred headdresses are earned through actions in helping, growing or protecting our Indigenous nations and traditionally would take a long time to be earned by the one who was gifted with the opportunity to possess and wear one. Every feather was earned and over time enough feathers were earned to complete the headdress so it could be worn with the full accomplishment of feathers as is now recognized. This sacred regalia has been hijacked by the Indian Act system and when you modern day Indian Agents win a band election or are elected through those useless lobby groups, you instantly begin wearing elaborately adorned headdresses complete with a train of feathers making you ego driven collaborators look and think you are some kind of superheroes.
Your act today however does not surprise me or many others as you have been involved in many initiatives which threaten our inherent rights and titles and treaty rights and titles such as the domestication of the United Nations declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). You are a lawyer under the colonial system and even though you know Bill C-15 would domesticate our international rights and titles under colonial subordination, you proceeded with it regardless so you can retain the favor of the Liberal regime in Ottawa.
You like many others are on a pedestal created by government propaganda and media because of your shameless collaboration with the colonizers and religious indoctrinators.
You are one shameless pathetic loser who has spent most of his political life sucking up to and catering to the colonial assimilation agenda in exchange for the proverbial colonial pat on the head for being a good dancing little Indian.
Today you have shown your true colours as nothing but an agent acting for the colonizers and the black robes (all Christian religions) which have collaboratively devastated our people, our cultures and our ancestral homeland all in the pursuit of their true god which is called money.
Please retire, put yourself in the history books and stop endangering our inherent rights and titles and treaty rights and titles and stay silent so you bring no further shame to our proud Indigenous peoples. In other words, just go away and stay away….before you make a bigger fool of yourself in front of the whole world again!
You should get that headdress back as you had absolutely no business giving that to anyone especially to the very leader of that global cult which has caused so much damage and grief to Indigenous children globally.
Sincerely
A fellow survivor….
Gerald McIvor
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada – The Honourable Murray Sinclair, former senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) issued the following statement today:
I want to recognize the importance of the Pope’s apology to Survivors, their families, and communities. For many Survivors, I know that hearing the words of contrition from the Pope was, and is, an essential factor in their personal recoveries and growth. My thoughts and prayers were with them as they listened.
When we set out Call to Action 58 in the TRC final report, the goal was always to have Survivors hear first-hand not only remorse but an acceptance of responsibility for what they were put through at the hands of the Church and other institutions.
Despite this historic apology, the Holy Father’s statement has left a deep hole in the acknowledgment of the full role of the Church in the Residential School system by placing blame on individual members of the Church. It is essential to underscore that the Church was not just an agent of the state, nor simply a participant in government policy, but was a lead co-author of the darkest chapters in the history of this land.
Driven by the Doctrine of Discovery and other Church beliefs and doctrines, Catholic leaders not only enabled the Government of Canada but pushed it even further in its work to commit cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples. In many instances, it was not just a collaboration but an instigation. There are clear examples in our history where the Church called for the Government of Canada to be more aggressive and bold in its work to destroy Indigenous culture, traditional practices, and beliefs.
It was more than the work of a few bad actors — this was a concerted institutional effort to remove children from their families and cultures, all in the name of Christian supremacy.
While an apology has been made, that same doctrine is in place.
The Pope and the Church remain silent on the most problematic tenets of its belief system: that Indigenous peoples in Canada and worldwide should not have the right to practice their faith, cultures, and traditions.
Reconciliation requires action, not passiveness. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples specifically calls for action to restore culture, beliefs, and traditions destroyed through past actions. Failure allows the destructive agency to live with the benefit of those past misdeeds. For the children and descendants of Survivors, it is not enough that you have stopped abusing them; you must act to help them recover and commit to never doing this again.
As the Pope continues his pilgrimage to meet First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Survivors this week, I hope he will take this to heart. There is a better path that the Church and all Canadians can follow: taking responsibility for past actions and resolving to do better on this journey of reconciliation.
We must commit ourselves to talk to and about each other with respect.