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| July 29, 2022 |
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Ignoring Clint Eastwood's
advice in "Dirty Harry" that opinions, like
certain body parts, are best kept to yourself.
 Pope
Francis apologized to Canada's native people on their land
for the Church's role in schools where indigenous children
were abused, branding forced cultural assimilation a
''deplorable evil'' and ''disastrous error.''
More
Pope
Francis has some who are critical of what he does sometimes,
but not in our family. When my son Tom and his family were
living in Vatican City while he completed his PhD in
Philosophy, my little granddaughter Audrey got sick and had
to be put in the Vatican Children's Hospital. Tom had been
studying in Rome for several years and got to know a lot of
people there. But when the Pope walked into the hospital
room to check on little Audrey it was a real shock.
Audrey
looked up to see the Pope coming through the door and
exclaimed "Papa Francisco!" (She was
getting pretty good at Italian at age 4). This photo and the
story was on the evening news in Rome and in the Vatican
newspaper. Tom says it is still a bit surreal thinking about
it. Audrey is now 9, and the stuffed animal the Pontiff gave
her is a prized possession.
Some people are criticizing the Pope for
wearing the Indian headdress given to him by the local tribe
as a sign of respect. Some people should perhaps lighten-up
a bit. It was standing room only when Francis held Mass at a
local outdoor arena, with preferential seating for all the
indigenous people of the area.
This was on my
website a couple of weeks ago:
 Starting
in the 1880's and for much of the 20th century, more than
150,000 children from hundreds of indigenous communities
across Canada were forcibly taken from their parents by the
government and sent to what were called Residential Schools.
Funded by the state and run by churches, they were designed
to assimilate and Christianize indigenous children by
ripping them from their parents, their culture, and their
community.
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A
lot of our politicians could take a few lessons from "The
Great White Father", a term our own American Indians
used to refer to the President of the United States.
Please
visit
my
travel blog to learn more about my life on the road.
Global
Air Aviation Referral Service
I welcome
responses, and will be glad to post them here. Email your
remarks to
ron@global-air.com |
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