Editor:
Punishing the innocent Our Lady the Holy Madonna as retribution for the misdeeds of deranged residential school priests strikes me as quite absurd.
Why banish the name of St. Mary’s Hospital? There are better ways to achieve reconciliation.
The goal ought to be to participate in action designed to make things right.
Let’s write to our MP and demand that the feds provide funding to compensate day scholars and also to create Aboriginal culture and language restoration programs so future generations can access the great cultural and linguistic wealth that is their heritage. We ought to contribute financially to legal action to accomplish this if the feds refuse to cooperate.
Generations ago, the Sechelt Nation built a most beautiful Catholic Church on the shores of Davis Bay in 1889. Delegations of First Nations people from all over B.C. honoured our Lady of the Rosary at its official opening.
When it later burned down, shísháhl parishioners built the first Our Lady of Lourdes Church, which stood in its place for 63 years.
The current Our Lady of Lourdes Church is a very modest structure by comparison and few outside the Sechelt Nation realize that it shelters one of the greatest masterpieces of sacred Aboriginal art in the province and indeed in the whole country, an Aboriginal Way of the Cross created by master carver Eddie Jeffries, rest his soul.
Perhaps Aboriginal and Eco Tour Services could put a tour of Our Lady of Lourdes Church and Grotto on the list of local gems to explore. This would be a grand way to honour the wishes of past Elders.
Roger Lagassé, Halfmoon Bay
