Catholic Voices Canada
Over the past 25 years, the Church has been developing its position on “the ecological crisis.” In anticipation of Pope Francis’ upcoming encyclical on climate change/ecology, here are the major magisterial statements.
“Respect for nature also calls for recognizing that man himself is a fundamental part of it. Along with an environmental ecology, there is also need of that human ecology which consists in respect for the person” Pope Francis, Address to European Parliament, November 2014
From the 1870’s until the 1990s, the Canadian government, in partnership with a number of Christian churches, operated a residential school system for more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children. These government-funded schools were set up forcibly to assimilate aboriginal children into the Canadian mainstream.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2007 to “reveal to Canadians the complex truth about the history of...the residential schools...to guide and inspire a process of truth and healing leading to reconciliation..."