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Children’s red dresses are staked along a highway near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School where flowers and cards have been left as part of a makeshift memorial created in response to media reports that the “remains” of 215 children have been discovered buried near the facility, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, on June 2, 2021. / Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images

Denver, Colo., Sep 15, 2023 / 09:54 am (CNA).

No human remains were found in last month’s excavation of a Catholic church basement on Pine Creek First Nations lands in Manitoba, Canada, after the community asked a Brandon University archaeological team to conduct excavations in the search for any missing children who might have died decades ago in the community’s former residential school.

In the summer of 2022, ground-penetrating radar discovered 71 anomalies on the lands of Pine Creek First Nation, also known as the Minegoziibe Anishinabe. Most anomalies were located in known burial areas on the grounds of the former Catholic-run Pine Creek Residential School. The community was surprised to find 14 of these anomalies in the basement of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church, prompting fears the church held possible graves and a crime scene. However, excavations from late July to mid-August of this year failed to find any human remains.

In an Aug. 18 video posted to Facebook, Chief Derek Nepinak of Pine Creek First Nation said: “The results of the excavation take nothing away from the difficult truths experienced by our families who attended the residential school in Pine Creek … As a community, we identified the possibility of something very tragic and difficult for our families, and we pursued the truth of it with no certainty about the outcome.” 

The First Nation community is still deciding how to respond to the other 57 anomalies in the known burial areas.

Their search effort comes as Canada is reckoning with the history of its government-backed residential school program to assimilate Indigenous people. The schools were operated by Catholic and Protestant groups.

About 150,000 children attended the schools in the 19th and 20th century, often with Indigenous children from other communities far from home. More than 4,000 children died, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza were the major killers. A 2015 government inquiry recorded many former students’ testimonies of abuse, substandard living conditions, family separation, and policies of “cultural genocide” to eliminate Indigenous culture.

Many children who died were buried on school grounds, in non-school community graveyards, or on hospital grounds in graves that have since faded from memory and lost any perishable markings. Students were given new non-Native names and parents were not always notified of the children’s deaths and places of burial. Poor recordkeeping and lost or destroyed records have compounded the problems.

Indigenous communities are now using ground-penetrating radar to try to locate potential grave sites while also drawing on surviving records and the testimony of community elders. 

In 2021, initial reports of hundreds of suspected grave anomalies at two school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan prompted a wave of violence and vandalism against Catholic and other churches, including churches serving Indigenous Christian congregations. Dozens of Catholic churches in Canada were vandalized or burned down after the announcement, The B.C. Catholic newspaper reported.

News of these anomalies also led to other major events. As Tristan Hopper pointed out in a Sept. 3 article in the National Post: “The surveys would help spawn a new holiday, Truth and Reconciliation Day, prompt an official visit by Pope Francis, and result in Canadian flags being kept at half-mast for a record-breaking five consecutive months.” 

But to date, Hopper pointed out, “of the hundreds of suspected graves identified starting in 2021, Pine Creek is the only one that has been followed up with an archeological dig.” 

Not all anomalies are expected to be potential graves, and Indigenous communities are often reluctant to disturb suspected burial sites.

One child’s remains were uncovered near a residential school since searches began. In southwest Saskatchewan last fall, the Star Blanket Cree Nation searched the site of the former Lebret Indian Industrial School and found the fragment of a child’s jawbone in an unmarked grave far from any known graveyard. The provincial coroner’s service identified the bone fragment as from a child between the ages of 4 and 6 and dated it to about 125 years ago, CBC News reported. The school was operated under Catholic auspices from 1884 to 1969, though it is unknown how the child died or whether the child was a student at the school.

In an April 20 statement, shíshálh Nation said ground-penetrating radar had identified 40 unmarked shallow graves of children near the former St. Augustine’s Indian Residential School in British Columbia, a Catholic-run institution. Chief yalxwemult’ Lenora Joe asked the media and the public to respect the community’s healing process. The community has not made statements outside of media releases.

Other communities have conducted searches without finding any anomalies, though these are not listed in the interim report.

Calls for ‘a truly accurate historical picture’

The failure to find evidence of “mass graves,” as many media reports categorized the discovery of anomalies, has prompted some observers to call for greater accuracy in documenting what really happened to Indigenous children in Canadian residential schools.

“No one aware of the sordid story of the Indian Residential School system, or the broader facts of Canada’s long mistreatment of its Indigenous peoples, legitimately denies our shameful past,” Peter Stockland wrote in Canada’s Catholic Register Sept. 7. “There’s zero evidence of a national urge to airbrush such history. But after a period of outpouring of hard truths, demand is mounting for clarifying questions and answers. The justification offered is a stated desire for a truly accurate historical picture.”

Stockland suggested a cultural divide is at work in the efforts to recover history: Non-Indigenous Canadians approach the claims of unmarked graves as “forensic matters subject to the procedures of criminal investigation, evidence-gathering, and proof beyond reasonable doubt.” But in his view, “many Indigenous leaders make clear repeatedly that the search for children in graves is not about bodily validation of that mistreatment. It’s about mourning the dead: dead children, that is, lost and too often forgotten ancestors.”

Bishop Emeritus Fred Henry of Calgary has said the Catholic Church in Canada should press the government for proof about missing children whose parents didn’t know what happened to them. 

“Why is the Catholic Church not asking the federal government for proof that even one residential child is actually missing in the sense that his [or] her parents didn’t know what happened to their child at the time of the child’s death?” he wrote in an email to Toronto’s Catholic Register in August.

Henry said he went to Catholic media because he had not received a response to an initial group email he sent to his fellow bishops earlier in the summer.

The New York Post in August cited several observers, including Jacques Rouillard, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Montreal, who voiced concern about the reporting of the alleged graves.

“I don’t like to use the word hoax because it’s too strong, but there are also too many falsehoods circulating about this issue with no evidence,” Rouillard said.

Catholic bishops respond

Despite historical questions and cultural tensions in Canada, the country’s Catholic bishops have said they will continue to support Indigenous communities while acknowledging the failings of Catholics involved in the Church-run residential school system.

“It is good that rigorous research is being conducted by professionals to understand better what happened at the schools. The bishops are supportive of such research,” Archbishop Richard Gagnon of Winnipeg told CNA Sept. 6. “They also understand and share the desire for truth to be at the heart of reconciliation.”

“That said, it is the priority of the bishops at this time to lead the Church in finding ways to walk with Indigenous peoples, to build relationships, to apologize when appropriate for suffering experienced within Church-operated institutions, and to be allies in the pursuit of justice,” Gagnon said.

The Canadian newspaper The Catholic Register, citing Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton and Archbishop Don Bolen of Regina, said the bishops collectively “have chosen to listen rather than respond to every event and demand arising from the process.”

Reluctance to excavate

A community’s response to suspected burials is “a very sensitive conversation,” a guide from the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials points out. The Canadian government-funded independent body is composed of predominantly Indigenous Canadians and experts in archival research, archeology, forensics, and police investigations. 

The guide notes that Indigenous communities may be reluctant to excavate, in part because of various laws, protocols, and teachings about honoring burial sites. Some families may want to move the remains to a more suitable burial place, but for others, the guide states, “the knowledge of survivors and other research may provide all the certainty they seek.”

Kimberly Murray, the Canadian government’s special interlocutor for missing children, unmarked graves, and burial sites, released a June interim report on how individual families and entire communities are searching for relatives and members whose fate or place of burial are unknown.

The report lists 16 Indigenous communities searching for anomalies and possible grave sites. Some searches have recovered unmarked burial sites at known cemeteries or near marked graves, while others have detected “potential unmarked burials.” 

Abuse history prompted church basement dig 

The former Pine Creek Residential School was operational from 1890 to 1969, and 21 children are known to have died there, according to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which keeps a list of children who died while at a residential school based on surviving Church and government records. 

Chief Nepinak noted that the failure to find remains in the church basement is separate from the testimony about the abuse at the school.

“There’s still a living memory of tremendous atrocity, of abuse that happened ranging from physical to emotional to sexual abuse,” Nepinak told the The Canadian Press.

CNA contacted Pine Creek First Nation for comment but did not receive a response by publication.

Pine Creek First Nation has a registered membership of 3,170 people, about 1,200 of whom live on reserve land. The discovery of the anomalies in the church basement prompted the community to call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) last year, The Globe and Mail reported. Though community leaders said that elders and community members had “additional knowledge and information in relation to these anomalies,” the RCMP investigation ended in July without finding any evidence of a crime, Manitoba RCMP said in a statement.

Sean Carleton, assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba, told CBC News in August that the searches aim to learn the full truth about the residential school system rather than prove abuses happened. They are “part of that ongoing work of really understanding what was going on in that school specifically and with the system as a whole.”

He said it is important to realize that not all anomalies will be human remains.

If some anomalies prove to be graves, they could be graves of community members, children who were not students, or non-Indigenous school staff and their children, as well as nuns and priests, Scott Hamilton, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, told The B.C. Catholic in 2021.

Archbishop Gagnon told CNA the Catholic bishops have prioritized acknowledging “the tremendous suffering, trauma, and intergenerational trauma” caused by the schools. They have also prioritized “following up on Pope Francis’ apology” and his encouragement to take a path of solidarity with Indigenous peoples in support of truth and supporting Indigenous languages and culture. The archbishop noted the goal of assisting in “the ongoing work of truth-telling.”

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Denver Newsroom, May 12, 2020 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- On March 13, once the pandemic began shutting things down in South Dakota, Brianda Tapia lost her job. A few weeks later, her husband Alejandro lost his job at a pork processing plant. And then he tested positive for coronavirus.

“His symptoms were not too bad, but he had to stay in bed for some time. He recovered three weeks ago,” Tapia said.

But with no work, the family was running out of food at home, and they weren’t sure what they’d do for their two boys.

And then, through a friend, Brianda and her husband found out that a Catholic organization was giving out cash to those who need it.

Since March 23, the Catholic Community Foundation for Eastern South Dakota, in partnership with the Diocese of Sioux Falls, has been providing grants to families affected by the pandemic. The foundation has given out more than $30,000 already, to at least 70 families, including 164 children. Grants average about $500 each.

Bishop Donald DeGrood of Sioux Falls issued a video at the end of April, promoting solidarity with those struggling amid the pandemic. He said that while the coronavirus has negatively impacted everyone, it has particularly troubled those without work.

“It’s important that we really focus on how we can tend to each other and care for each other,” DeGrood said in the video.

“Here is a chance for us to be brothers and sisters both in a time of need and in our time of generosity. I hope you consider helping us as we consider helping each other in this journey of life.”

“The COVID relief fund is for those who want to donate towards it, who can help others, and then the foundation will be a resource to parishes, and individuals, schools, any of our groupings on this eastside where there is need to apply for funding so we can try to match the gifts with the need,” the bishop added.

Kelly Bartmann, a gift planning specialist for Catholic Community Foundation, told CNA that the relief fund has been a blessing for members of the local community. She said the organization will give away money to those in need until funds run out, and she applauded the generosity of the patrons who have donated to the fund.

“We felt like we need to be there for people, to provide that feeling that someone cares. Even if we can only give them $500, we’re hoping that that connects them a little bit with the idea that there are people out there that care and that are willing to step up and help them.”

“We’re just very happy that people have really stepped up,” she said. “We have had gifts as small as $2 from some people and as large as $10,000, so it’s impressive on both ends.”

Beneficiaries do not have to be Catholic to receive funds.

Father Kristopher Cowles, the pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Sioux Falls, helped develop an approach to distributing funds. Parish priests are the first step to connecting families to grants. Pastors talk with families impacted by the virus – whether  they face unemployment, the loss of childcare, or the virus itself – and then they try to help.

“We haven’t been able to really have Masses and have a lot of connection with people. I think it gives [priests] that connection … to feel like they’re serving their purpose and just providing relationships for people and being the hands and feet of Jesus. I mean that’s what we’re here for,” Bartmann said.

Bartmann said the money has contributed to basic necessities, like rent, bills, medications, and food.

Families in Sioux falls were hit hard when a Smithfield pork plant shut down on April 19. The plant is the ninth-largest pork producer in the United States, with around 3,700 employees; it faced a spike of coronavirus infections, involving at least 640 cases of COVID-19 and 1 related death.

The Tapia family was among those impacted by the shutdown.

A parishioner of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church alerted Fr. Cowles to the family’s needs. Brianda said the money they received was a huge relief while the family waited for work to resume.

Her husband began to work again on May 12.

Tapia expressed gratitude for the foundation and its contribution to her family but also the family’s Catholic faith, which has brought them closer to God.

“The money was a God-send, it was a surprise and a blessing, because we were running out of food for us and for our two boys (9 and 8),” she said.

“Our Catholic faith has been crucial for us. Faith is always important, but especially in these trial times, in which we feel closer and united to the Lord.”

[…]