Letter to the editor: On residential schools: 'Wrong to paint with broad brush'

Notes: "I am disappointed that Archbishop Hiltz and National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald felt they should address so stridently Senator Lynn Beyak's heartfelt and honest defense of the teachers whose vocation took them into the wilderness to teach Indigenous children ("'Nothing good' about Indian residential schools', May 2017, p, 3). Why should the criminal abuse by a few of their number be permitted to condemn the rest by association ? It is anachronistic to use the term 'cultural genocide' to describe 19th-century pedagogical ideas that were also applied to European children. The main cultural thrust of the schools was to instill a Christian faith, which was all too often confused with current European norms. There was indeed a good deal wrong with the residential schools, but it is also wrong to paint with such a broad brush. The rediscovery of their culture, and their identification as victims, is playing an important role in the growing confidence of Canada's First Nations, but it is going too far, as Hiltz and MacDonald do, to assert that they alone 'have the authority to tell the story'. We should remember St. Matthew's admonition: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged' (Matthew 7:1-3)". [Text of entire article.]

Subjects: Indian residential schools - Canada - History; Beyak, Lynn, 1949-; Hiltz, Fred (Frederick James), 1953-; MacDonald, Mark L. (Mark Lawrence), 1954-; Anglican Church of Canada - Residential schools; Christianity and culture - Canada