Withdraw invite to Pope until Church pays reconciliation tab

Pope Francis is considering an invitation “from the First Nations” to visit Canada, according to media reports.

That invite should be withdrawn until the Church stops trying to skip out on $25 million it owes residential school survivors.

The money was contained in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which, among other things, established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The reconciliation process was an alternative to the avalanche of lawsuits filed by survivors.

The thinking was that healing would more likely come through apology and education than through litigation. The $25 million in question (separate and apart from money already paid by the Church under the settlement agreement) was “part of the Church’s process of reconciliation with survivors,” as the Globe and Mail wrote this week, quoting Jim Prentice, a justice minister for the Harper Conservatives, who inked the deal.

The Church entities were to implement a “best efforts” fundraising campaign to raise the cash. But they only came up with $3.7 million of the total after a half-hearted effort that skipped individual parishioners in favour of already cash-strapped Catholic dioceses.

Now, after a federal lawyer inadvertently suggested in legal communications that they wouldn’t have to pay the remainder, the Church says no more money will be forthcoming.

This is a serious setback in an already difficult healing process.

For survivors, no amount of money can undo the harm that was done to them as vulnerable children forcibly removed from their families and all that they knew. But the Church's brazen attempt to evade its moral obligations rips the scab off the wound. It’s a painful reminder that there is still a distance to go in the reconciliation process.

There are those who say the federal government should come up with the money the church refuses to pay. One of them is Phil Fontaine, former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations who first drew national attention to the residential schools issue.

Former chief Fontaine deserves much credit for having the courage to talk about his own abusive residential school experience and creating the public pressure that forced Canada to deal with this tragic part of its history.

Certainly, the survivors are entitled to the funds. But having the feds pick up the tab would be a last resort. If the Catholic Church does not make good on its financial obligation, its role in the reconciliation exercise will be forever tarnished. For its own credibility and integrity, the Church ought to come up with the money.

In the circumstances, this is no time for a papal visit for it would only add insult to the latest injury.