As Long as the Rivers Flow (26 page)

“Those poor children,” the archbishop said. “How they must have suffered, all alone up in those lonely schools.”

“To make it worse,” continued the bishop, “the Church did little to remedy the problem other than by transferring the offending parties to other residential schools to make a fresh start. Now we are faced with a major problem. You will have seen from this morning’s
Le Devoir
that some former students have the right to sue the Church for damages. And they will certainly do so.”

“The archbishop sat in silence for a few minutes before speaking again. “What do you think the Church should do? Should it apologize? Should it pay compensation to the injured parties?”

The bishop was happy. When it came to weighing the pros and cons of moral issues affecting the Church, he was in his element. Leaning forward, he spoke to his superior as if he were a junior parish priest fresh from the seminary.

“Your Grace, as the Church Fathers have said, in cases like these, we must look at what option leads to the greater good. The Church is faced with a dilemma. If it apologizes to those who were harmed, it would be taking the moral high road. But in so doing, it would be admitting that it was in fact responsible for the wrongdoing. It could be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars, churches might have to be sold, parishes could become bankrupt, the faithful left with no place to worship, and souls condemned to perdition. But if the Church admits no fault, makes no apology and fights the claims in court, it will be able to limit its liability and continue to serve the faithful.”

“In other words,” said the archbishop, “you are saying we must decide between doing the right thing for the Indian people or doing the right thing for the Church. I think that’s a false choice. In my opinion, in being honest with the residential school survivors, we will only strengthen the Church.”

“Of course, of course, you are absolutely right,” said the bishop quickly. “My comments were meant to deal with just one aspect of the problem.”

“I also think there are bigger issues at stake,” continued the archbishop. “How can we help the Indian people heal themselves? How can a country that was built on a foundation of injustice toward the Indian people heal itself?

“Perhaps we can make a start in the right direction if we do the right thing about this plea for help,” he said, pulling out the letter from Joshua and handing it to the bishop. “I received this today from a chief in the north of Ontario telling me that generations of children from his community had attended one of our schools, were abused by a predatory priest and are suffering the consequences today. He asked if a Father Lionel Antoine, who was the resident priest at the school in those days, could go to the community and participate in a healing ceremony. Could you try to find him, if he is still alive, and ask him to go? Could you go as well?”

After lunch, the now thoroughly upset bishop returned to his residence. He completely disagreed with the archbishop’s position. His superior plainly did not understand what was at stake. The Church in Canada was already in a state of crisis as fewer and fewer parishioners attended weekly services, as revenues dried up, as more and more people, and not just from the Indian community, came forward with allegations about sexual abuse by priests.

Now the Church was facing accusations that literally thousands of Indian children had suffered in residential schools from harsh treatment, sexual molestation and assaults on their cultural identity. It was a distasteful business but he had to consider his options. He suspected the charges were all true. As a bishop, responsible for in-house clerical discipline in the Quebec City area, he dealt with priests
who had abused boys and girls on an all too regular basis. To make matters worse, although it made him sick to his stomach, he usually hushed up the cases to protect the Church.

Afraid the archbishop would be displeased, he had not dared tell him he thought it was a bad idea to send clerics to a healing circle. Their participation could be taken by the lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs as an admission of Church liability. He was tempted to sabotage the entire operation. The hierarchy would be as shocked as he was at the initiative to send a priest, who was almost certainly guilty of the charge of abusing children, to engage in some sort of hare-brained reconciliation and healing process.

If he was careful, perhaps he could have a word with one of his well-placed friends in the upper reaches of the Church, and the initiative would be stopped in its tracks. Archbishop Laframbroise would never guess who had let him down, and his career would not suffer. After a few minutes of reflection, however, the bishop shook his head. “How can I think such thoughts? No man of honour would betray his superior.” But now he had to travel to the back of nowhere to some place that wasn’t even on the map. What about his safety? And the food? He shuddered to think what would be on offer. And the accommodations? Would he have to sleep in a tent filled with bugs?

Father Antoine had rejoiced when the government, with no warning, closed the residential school on James Bay in the mid-1970s. He was, after all, still only in his mid-fifties and too young to retire. Perhaps he would now be able to fulfil his old dream of becoming a parish priest in the province of his birth. He was not certain, however, whether word of his activities with the little girls had leaked out to his headquarters. He need not have worried.

“Father Antoine,” the superior of his order told him when he
reported for duty, “you have done wonderful work with
les petits sauvages
in northern Ontario, but now we need you here at home. For years, young people have been turning their backs on the Church and not accepting vocations, and we simply do not have enough priests to attend to the needs of the faithful. Could you help out for a few more years?”

“You know I would never say no,” said the priest. “But is there not something in my past that prevents me from carrying out such a role?”

“Oh, that little matter,” said his superior. “I checked your file and can assure you that your decades of faultless service in the north have wiped your record clean. There is no need to worry.”

Father Antoine soon discovered, however, that the Quebec of his youth was no more. His home village and the surrounding farmland had been overrun by the expanding urban sprawl of Montreal and was now plagued with strip malls, supermarkets, motels, drive-through restaurants and giant cinemas. The mighty Canadians, although showing flashes of brilliance under a new generation of players led by Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson and Jacques Lemaire, were no longer the powerhouse team of old.

But it was not until he took up his duties that he saw how much the beloved Church of his boyhood and youth had changed. The Latin mass that he had loved so much when he was young was gone. The Church was no longer the centre of community life and the priest was not the most important person in local society. Given the shortage of clerics, Father Antoine found that he was obliged to work in three parishes, engaging in a mad rush on Saturday nights and Sundays from one to the other to celebrate mass with a handful of mainly elderly parishioners. The rest of his week was occupied conducting funerals and officiating at marriages on behalf of families, many of whom he would never see again in church, and who
treated him as just another functionary, not much more important than the clerks who processed their requests for drivers’ licences and Quebec Health Insurance cards.

Nevertheless, Father Antoine worked hard, adapted to the post–Vatican II world, and was soon so highly regarded by his parishioners that attendance in the churches he served underwent a modest increase. But once again, his sexual compulsions caught up with him, and a little girl told her parents he had touched her in her private places. Such was the priest’s reputation in the community, however, that no one believed her. His superior thought otherwise, and quietly transferred him to another part of the province where he was not known.

In the coming years, the pattern was repeated. Father Antoine would make a good initial impression, he would offend again, and the Church would shift him elsewhere, sometimes just ahead of the law. Eventually, when he entered his seventies and his sexual urges diminished, he stopped molesting little girls and he became a model priest in every way. And when he reached eighty, he gave up his priestly duties altogether and moved to a retirement home, safely out of reach, he believed, of anyone who could dredge up anything scandalous about his past.

When Bishop de Salaberry called on him and handed him a letter, Father Antoine had no reason to suspect that he brought unwelcome news. Holding the envelope in his hand, he saw from the return address that it was from the chief of Cat Lake First Nation to Archbishop Laframbroise.

He was surprised. Why would the chief of the remote reserve in northern Ontario that had sent so many students to the residential school where he had served for so many years be writing to the archbishop of Quebec? And how was he, a humble retired priest, involved?

Perhaps the chief had sent a letter of thanks to the archbishop to express gratitude for his years of selfless labour on behalf of the children of his community? Maybe he had asked the archbishop to intercede with the Holy Father himself to send him a letter of commendation and a papal medallion extolling his merits?

Yes, that was it. And the Holy Father would certainly honour the request. Now what, he wondered, should he do with the medallion when it arrived? It would be selfish of him to keep it in its case in his room. It would be better to put it on display on the wall of the chapel for everyone to see and admire.

But what if the letter was about something more important? What, for example, if one of his former students had been miraculously cured of some horrible disease after invoking his name in a prayer? Perhaps he was being considered for sainthood after his death?

Bishop de Salaberry told him to open and look at the letter.

“I’m afraid you won’t like it.”

“I can’t believe it,” Father Antoine said after scanning the contents. “This is so unexpected! It’s all untrue.” He looked up to see the bishop looking at him grimly, but he carried on. “How could Chief Nanagushkin say such things! I remember when he was at the residential school. He was such a good boy. He went on to do wonderful things with his life. He was a role model. But he must have changed.

“I swear to you I loved those Indian children. I still do and I saved so many souls!”

“I’m not here to judge you,” said the bishop. “But we’ve been ordered by the archbishop to attend a healing circle at Cat Lake First Nation and we have no time to lose.”

S
EVERAL WEEKS LATER
, just after suppertime, a volunteer at the radio station broadcast a message inviting the people to attend an important meeting being held at seven that evening at the school.

“The parents of Rebecca, Jonathan and Sara will be taking part in a healing circle,” he said. “Two guests from the outside will also be there and the chief thinks they can help us deal with the suicide epidemic in our community.”

Shortly thereafter, the people of Cat Lake First Nation began filing into the gymnasium. Spider entered accompanied by his mother and sister and took a seat off by himself in the audience. Martha and Raven continued on to take their places in the circle. Martha had not had a drink all day. She was still struggling with her depression, but wanted to keep her mind clear for the evening.

Joshua, as he had during other critical moments in Martha’s life, had gone out of his way to be helpful, taking his outboard motorboat and going down the river in search of Spider. He met the old couple who had befriended him earlier in the summer and they
told him Spider had stayed with them for several weeks, learning how to handle a canoe, fish and cook simple meals. And then after borrowing fishing gear, matches, a pot, frying pan and a small supply of lard, flour and baking powder to make bannock, he paddled off in search of his grandparents’ old trapping cabin. The old couple had given him careful directions and had no doubt he would find his way.

Although friendly, Spider had greeted Joshua warily when he pulled his boat up on the beach in front of the cabin. He had settled in and was in no hurry to leave, he said. But when told that his sister was suicidal and his mother was not coping well, he quickly agreed to accompany Joshua back to the reserve to attend the healing circle.

His mother had emerged from her bedroom where she was drinking when she heard Spider and Joshua greeting Raven as they came through the door. Martha said nothing and threw her arms around him, crying uncontrollably. Spider hugged her in return but grew concerned when he smelled the alcohol on her breath and she refused to release him. Joshua and Raven came to the rescue, gently prying her arms from around his neck and sitting her down on a chair.

“Welcome back, bro,” Raven had then told him. We really need your help now.”

Joshua waited until Martha sobered up and then shocked her by saying that Raven needed help to prevent her from killing herself. He had been doing what he could, but in the end, the only person who could save her was her mother.

“Frankly,” he said, “with your depression, drinking problems and crying jags, you’re in no shape to do her any good. That’s why it’s important you attend the circle with your family. You might learn things about yourselves you never suspected. At the least, it
will be good therapy. And I have some surprises up my sleeve that should help matters along.”

Their grief was still visible on their faces when the parents of Rebecca, Jonathan and Sara came in to sit next to Raven and Martha. They were followed by two clerics, a younger one, unsmiling and serious with a purple band around the waist of his cassock, and an old priest, tall and fat with a deeply wrinkled but cleanly shaved face and light blue friendly eyes. The band around his waist was black and a large cross hung down at the end of a long silver chain from his neck. He stood for a minute looking anxiously around the room before sitting down.