Administration Day 2022 – Reflecting on local diocesan involvement in the papal visit to Canada

A round dance concluded a local Walking and Healing Together event held in Saskatoon during the papal visit in July. Myron Rogal provided a report about the local day to parish and diocesan leaders at an Administration Day Sept. 14 in Saskatoon. Bishop Hagemoen and Debbie Ledoux ofOur Lady of Guadalupe Parish reflected on the local bus trip to Alberta events. (Photo by Kiply Lukan Yaworski, Catholic Saskatoon News)

“We can’t leap to reconciliation in big leaps, it can’t happen quickly.”Parish Life Director Debbie Ledoux

By Kiply Lukan Yaworski, Catholic Saskatoon News

As part of the program of a diocesan Administration Day Sept. 14, several speakers spoke about the local involvement and impact of the historic visit of Pope Francis to Canada in July 2022.

Bishop Mark Hagemoen and Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Life Director (PLD) Debbie Ledoux were both in attendance at Maskwacis, AB, when the pope apologized for the harm to those who attended Catholic-run residential schools, as well as attending the event at the Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage site the following day.

Members of the Saskatoon delegation to papal visit events July 25-26 were among the pilgrims joining Pope Francis at Lac Ste. Anne – including Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Life Director Debbie Ledoux and parishioner Sandra Harper. (Photo by Bishop Mark Hagemoen)

Bishop Mark Hagemoen told parish representatives, pastors and diocesan ministry leaders that he is still coming to terms with the experience and encounters of Pope Francis’ visit.

“I had the privilege of attending the events in Edmonton, and I also had the privilege of attending and spending a lot of time with Debbie in Edmonton,” he said, thanking her for her leadership.

“Debbie, you left room for God to work. People were in different places,” he said. “Debbie was able to invite them to a pilgrimage event and allow people to work and to be where they are at in their healing journey.”

He added: “I think we will all be grappling with – through the movement of the Holy Spirit – what has happened in the encounter with Pope Francis and the Indigenous peoples of the country we now call Canada, and the non-Indigenous peoples for a long time. It was a blessed event and (there are) lots of fruits to unfold.”

PLD Debbie Ledoux shared her experience of leading a group of 27 pilgrims on the bus trip from Saskatoon to the papal visit events in the Edmonton area.

She began her report with thanks to the administration staff at the Catholic Pastoral Centre for their help in organizing the trip, and for the encouragement of the bishop. (The bus pilgrimage was organized with support and assistance from the diocese of Saskatoon and was provided at no cost to participants.) “The grace of God helped us through it.”

Participants in the bus trip included residential school survivors, the children of survivors, victims of the “60s scoop,” and others affected by the multi-generational effects of the residential school system that took children away from their families and punished them for speaking their language, in a harsh environment that for many included sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

Some of the pilgrims on the Our Lady of Guadalupe trip were Catholic parishioners, but a number had no affiliation with the Church and are still struggling to come to terms with the effects of residential schools, racism, addictions, and colonialism, she said, noting that each person was on a different place in their journey, and every individual has been affected differently by the experience of hearing the papal apology. “Creator God was working through the Holy Spirit on this bus,” she affirmed

During the 2022 Admin Day, Debbie Ledoux, Parish Life Director hof Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Saskatoon reflected on the parish’s bus trip to participate in papal visit events at Maskwacis and Lac Ste Anne, AB. Bishop Hagemoen also spoke about the papal visit, while Myron Rogal of the diocesan Office of Justice and Peace reported on a local “Walking and Healing Together” event held in Saskatoon during the papal visit. (Photo by Kiply Lukan Yaworski, Catholic Saskatoon News)

The journey started with a stop at the former Thunderchild (St. Henri) residential school site at Delmas, SK, said Ledoux, describing how travellers walked the grounds and gathered in a circle to smudge and to pray, laying down tobacco for all the children that never made it home from residential school.

“One of our participants actually went there, and another participant’s parents went there: and that was the beginning of our pilgrimage trip…. A lot of emotions were stirred up. It was the beginning of our tearful moments together.”

Up very early the next morning to board the bus for Maskwacis, the group welcomed the snacks delivered by the bishop to the university residence where the pilgrims were staying, she said. “When we got there, people got off the bus and just went — I lost my group!”

Maskwacis was a “crying, emotional, heavy, heavy place to be,” she related, describing how it began to rain, with so many in the crowd in tears. “I remember saying ‘Creator God is blessing us, because we need that right now.’ And we really did.”

She said that the moment that particularly struck home for her was when Pope Francis returned a pair of tiny child-sized moccasins to Marie-Anne Day Walker-Pelletier, a retired chief of Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan – fulfilling a promise that he had made three months before in Rome to visit Indigenous peoples on their own land.

“That was an amazing moment, because he promised that he would be here, and he did come to our sacred ground in Canada.”

After the event, later that evening, a number of the Saskatoon pilgrimage participants gathered for a time of prayer and sharing. “That was another moment, a very powerful moment… I am sure many of them did not share before.”

The next day the group went to Lac Ste. Anne and were blessed to be close to Pope Francis. “Just seeing him in person, how powerful that was,” she said. “But I also want you to know that our people who were on the bus had many many mixed emotions. Many were still very angry. Many are not sure why they went…. ” She said for some, witnessing the papal visit was a huge step, but for others, the struggle continues and the event raised painful emotions, even bringing back nightmares and re-awakening buried feelings.

In the days following the bus trip, Ledoux has reached out to the group, invited the fellow travellers to a follow-up meal, with plans to continue to journey and to share with those who wish to meet again. The long and painful journey of healing involves many “baby steps,” she stressed. “Towards reconciliation — baby steps. We can’t leap to reconciliation in big leaps, it can’t happen quickly,” she said.

“We  have to sit together as a Catholic Church, sit together with those that are still in pain. Walk with them.”

Myron Rogal, coordinator of the diocesan Office of Justice and Peace, also provided a report about a local “Walking and Healing Together” event held July 26 in Saskatoon for residential school survivors and their families and for all who were interested in being together to view video broadcasts of Pope Francis’ apology at Maskwacis, his homily during Mass at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton and his visit to Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage site.

Carrying in the colours during the grand entry procession to open the local Walking and Healing Together program held in Saskatoon July 26. (Photo by Kiply Lukan Yaworski, Catholic Saskatoon News)

The free day-long event at St. Mary Wellness and Education Centre in Saskatoon also had opportunities for prayer, beginning with a pipe ceremony, as well as a Mass at nearby St. Mary Parish, with a sacred fire burning throughout the day next to a tipi on the school grounds, with supports on site from elders and professional counsellors, and self-care stations set up, meals provided, as well as speakers, and a program of entertainment to conclude the day.

Although numbers in attendance were small, Rogal stressed the broad community support experienced in organization of the day, and powerful pillars of the day: prayer, traditional ritual, and healing. “It was really a privilege to be part of an event where you could hear conversations among people who really hadn’t talked about the residential school experience before, open up, to talk to other survivors, other people in their community who wanted to hear what they were saying. There was a tremendous amount of learning that happened. It was truly a sacred place,” he said.

“We had clergy join us throughout the day, which was wonderful, we had people from different parishes partake in the day… and many volunteers from the school division as well,” he said, adding that there was interest and support expressed in the wider community as well. The day ended on a celebratory note with a meal and entertainment by drummers, musicians and dancers.

Communications coordinator Kiply Lukan Yaworski noted that the papal visit is not just something to “check off”, but that efforts toward healing and reconciliation must continue and are continuing. She pointed to the recent work of a Discernment Circle for the Catholic TRC Healing Fund in launching covenant guidelines that will determine what projects might be supported by that fund, for which there is ongoing fund-raising underway. As well a four-module Indigenous Pastoral Lay Leadership Program is starting again in the diocese, offered online for all leaders or anyone interested in broadening their understanding of issues and relationships related to Truth and Reconciliation.

Bishop Mark Hagemoen concluded by noting that much is also happening on the national level as a result of the extraordinary papal visit, including a renewed focus and reorganization of the work of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) through its Indigenous council and papal visit working group, as well as the national Our Lady of Guadalupe Circle, an organization of Catholic and Indigenous leaders.

“We continue to pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us in our journey with Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, and that we will continue to be able to realize what it means, in the spirit of accompaniment, ‘not for us, but with us.’ And ultimately we know it is the Holy Spirit that calls us to walk with God as we continue the healing and reconciliation journey,” concluded the bishop.

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