It didn’t take long for cancel culture to invade the church. The Roman Catholic church; the Anglican church has already cancelled itself, so no invasion is necessary.
Monsignor Owen Keenan, priest at Merciful Redeemer Parish in Mississauga, was foolish enough to express the opinion that there may have been some good done in the residential schools.
Admittedly, his timing was bad and perhaps he is wrong and nothing good whatsoever was done in the schools – a proposition I find implausible. But that isn’t the point. He surely should be allowed to voice his opinion without being fired – well, he “resigned”.
But no, there are some things you just can’t say and expect to get away with it. Including in the RC church. To make matters worse, he committed the secular mortal sin of denouncing the flying of Pride flags by Catholic schools.
I don’t suppose Keenan has a death wish; he is probably just harmlessly naïve.
From here:
A priest who referred to the “good done” by the Roman Catholic Church in residential schools has resigned from his role as pastor, the Archdiocese of Toronto confirmed on Friday.
During a sermon last Sunday, Monsignor Owen Keenan, the pastor of the Merciful Redeemer Parish in Mississauga, west of Toronto, talked about the remains of an estimated 215 children discovered at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. run by the church.
“Two-thirds of the country is blaming the church, which we love, for the tragedies that occurred there,” he said on a video that was posted to the church’s YouTube page but was later deleted.
“I presume the same number would thank the church for the good done in those schools, but of course, that question was never asked and we are not allowed to even say that good was done there. I await to see what comes to my inbox.”
In a statement on Twitter Friday, the Archdiocese of Toronto said Keenan resigned from his role as pastor and has been placed on an indefinite leave of absence.
“We apologize for the pain caused by his remarks,” the Archdiocese said.
The parish has issued an apology as has Keenan. It is suitably grovelling but, as expected, insufficiently so to save his job. You can read both here.
Did someone say something about a man’s enemies being those of his own household? …
The Gospel always is good since it is Jesus Christ made Manifest among us, first in His Divine Person and + Saving Work, then as recorded in His Holy WORD.
How it is shared is disputable.
All Denominations connected with the Residential School policy failed in what should have been a Christ-like loving sharing: F
First and foremost by leaving children with their families in their communities; as did the Foreign Missionary Society whose selfless Servants of The WORD learned the language of their flocks both to interact with them, and to translate The Holy Scriptures for them to read.
Barona, on Friday, June 25, 20201, at ‘V Is For Vigano’ ( ie Archbishop Vigano’s public ‘Testimony’ of August 25, 2018 re. a “homosexual network” in the RCC) asks The Cardinal the cardinal question :the same one that neither he nor the ACC Primate and Episcopal hierarchy will answer; or Pope Francis, for that matter.
The answer is “according to The Scriptures“.
What exactly went on in the residential schools setting or settings is surely known in detail only to God. What is known is that the situation of many of the children in the native communities was far from Edenic. Both physical sickness and sexual abuse were rife: the schools were a rescue operation. What is highly improbable is that all that was done to the children by Christian people was wicked and cruel, and that they were all desperately unhappy all the time.
The Bible says: “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Flying flags at half mast is done in situations like this, why would the Priest not feel ok about this? The Churches were involved in Residential Schools, but, how much was the Government involved as well?
Ha !
Maybe the Priest has a point, but why not just keep his mouth shut, to avoid all the toxic drama ?