Kamloops 'Mass Grave' Controversy: Indigenous Catholic Priest Responds (Guest: Fr Cristino)

On May 27, 2021, the Kamloops Indian Band announced that ground-penetrating radar had detected the remains of 215 "missing children" at the site of a former residential school. The media quickly picked up the story, with headlines proclaiming the discovery of "mass graves."

I sat down with Fr. Cristino Bouvette, a Canadian Catholic priest with Indigenous heritage and asked him a number of questions surrounding this report - and the consequence of it.

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Transcript

Were 215 children's remains discovered at a former Canadian residential school? On May 27th 2021 the cam loops Indian ban announced that ground penetrating radar had detected the remains of 215 children at the site of a former residential school the media quickly picked up the story with headlines proclaiming the discovery of mass Graves social media exploded churches were vandalized and some burned to the ground Catholic Bishops issued apologies but was it true I sat down with Father Christina bouvette a Catholic priest with indigenous Heritage and asked him a number of questions surrounding this report and the consequences of it our discussion attempts to bring Clarity to this [Music] controversy father Christino this has been a long time coming I'm so pleased that we get to do this again me too welcome so thank you today uh there's there's been a topic that I've been meaning to talk to you about and it starts with the number 215 MH and the number 215 has been circulating particularly within the the Canadian church because of a report of grave sites found in the cam loops area near a residential school and the initial claim in May on May 27th 2021 uh the C in a cam Loop's Indian band issued a statement that said this past weekend with the help of a ground penetrating ra radar specialist the Stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the camloop Indian residential school so this is back in 2021 mhm you remember that oh how could I forget so what was your first reaction when I first saw the story break the well actually I had been uh away on Retreat and so I had my phone off and I wasn't going on the internet when I turned my phone on it exploded with texts and emails and then I read this headline and the headline used the word amass grave that amass grave had been discovered at the site of a former residential school well you can imagine I I think you're aware Maybe some of your your audience would not be aware that I have indigenous Heritage my grandmother who is cre uh cre Indian she spent 12 years in a residential school she received her entire education in that system along with all of her siblings so this is not something that I am unfamiliar with this is something that hits very close to home for me when I saw that headline my heart just sank and as I continue to read the story I said wait a minute what what do you mean you've discovered a mass grave it was sort of like the mass grave was the title and then there started to be these other peculiarities to the way that they were describing what happened that there was the use of ground penetrating radar right and the remains were found uh but nothing had been dug up and as I read through I said this doesn't sound like this has confirmed this sounds like we are afraid that this might be what's here so my next logical conclusion was well then I guess we're going to need to as carefully and respectfully as possible excavate the site so that if there are in fact bodies remains of children that are just heaped up in some grave that we can do whatever it takes to make sure that they have been properly dealt with but then also start asking some questions what the heck happened here right mhm well that's not what ever came to pass it seemed as though this statement was going to suffice to send the entire country into a tail spin of remorse and hatred and vitriol and anger that I it left my head spinning I couldn't believe what was happening many people know about my own personal cultural background and my family's association with residential schools now I'm a Catholic priest and the Catholics were Enemy Number One uh the federal government sure made uh that easy to identify quickly and and early on that these were operated P primarily by Catholic uh the Catholic church and so people wanted to know what I thought and I didn't I didn't know what I thought and unlike most people I think in our modern social media instant messaging world I just kept my mouth shut for a while I needed time to process and do more digging and ask some questions and it didn't take long it was less than a week before the phrase Mass grave discovery of mass grave had been modified and now I saw that we moved to the category was um probable burial sites very different and then they talked about Graves well graves are different than a pit full of bodies cemeteries are full of graves so then I asked the question are we talking about a cemetery is that what we found here and of course the more questions you start asking not out of a sense of wanting to deny history this is something that I feel very confident that I can stand in the face of this whole concept of residential school denialism how can I deny what my grandmother lived through h who can accuse me of denying that asking questions isn't denying anything because if we are not seeking the truth if we are not trying to understand all of what surrounds what's happened here we will never get anywhere what's the point of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission if we leave the truth off you can't have reconciliation without truth and so I am not opposed to reconciliation I have spent the last four years of of my life and Ministry completely consumed by this question but it has to have the truth so so let's talk about the truth of the consequence of that initial report as reported as the remains of 215 children what was the effect of that if you think on the country and on the church and on individuals like it was massive we flew our flags at half mass by federal decree for six months uh there were protests held all over the place uh the orange T-shirt campaign uh became a thing and with this logo every child matters and 215 printed everywhere as as though 2115 was now symbolic of uh making amends for or reparation for these children who apparently perished while they were at residential school uh it just became a life of its own what about even your thoughts then wasn't it after that that we really started to see churches burn in Canada well that would be the the biggest thing that you could say seemed like the consequence of this uh I I'm always careful to say that it's the precipitating cause like that uh violence and aggression against Catholic churches wouldn't have happened if this story hadn't run but it's hard to look away from the correlation between the two our churches weren't burning every other day of the week uh in the Years leading up to this report and then there was a period of time while I mean what ended up happening with me was I I delivered a a sermon during mass on June the 13th in which I tried to address this topic uh it was it was widely uh circulated uh it went on Facebook and I think I didn't suffer any personal repercussions from any any direction for saying the things that I said uh but it was picked up by the news media and then I was asked by Global News Calgary if I would be willing to help them put a little story together covering an indigenous Catholic priest giving his take on what happened uh and so the day they came to interview me that beautiful historic church in mville was burning to the ground and the news anchor the the journalist who was going to interview me asked me you know how did I feel that day like how did I feel about the interview that we were about to do and I just said oh I hope tomorrow my Cathedral isn't burnt down and I actually really wondered if I go out on the news and I say the things if I speak my truth as we like to say nowadays was I going to turn around and see my Parish or my Cathedral Church burn to the ground uh so this we we lost complete control of ourselves we we we abandoned the use of reason it was purely an emotional reaction to something that if it were true would certainly give good cause for having the emotions that were being expressed but we weren't allowed to ask if it was true and if you asked if it was true that was another reason to cause outrage we can't get anywhere in a in a situation like that when I look at the situation to before we get to what what is the official story now right after that I saw church leaders respond our Bishop

western Canada I know the president of the Canadian conference Bishops also ises a statement but there was a real unity in the message of either accepting for fact uh the 215 remains of children or accepting the fact of graves

um so when the Catholic faithful heard their Shepherds apologize for something that was considered fact and it turns out it wasn't but fact at the time it was just people on the pews in my perspective experiences this shame based upon a falsehood um do do you think my assessment of that is correct I agree that that was the outcome many people did have that emotional reaction our Bishops never apologized for the historic fact that 215 children were murdered and thrown into a pit okay that was the way the the initial story was spun and was put out our Bishops never apologized for that and what we seem as a culture in general incapable of doing now are making distinctions there are things to apolog olze for on behalf of the institution of the Catholic church with regard to residential school that is a fact children died in the residential school that is a fact there are burial sites at residential school property that is a fact you cannot weave together from out of those facts an imaginary scenario where priests and nuns are responsible for the execution of children who they have tried to systematically hide their deaths and bury them unceremoniously if that's what you're trying to suggest is happened and that that is what needs to be apologized for that is insane that can't be apologized for because that's not what's happened and if you take those other three categories that I just said were facts and try and weave a different story from out of them then you are going to create a bigger falsehood and when you've created a bigger falsehood and it inevitably unravels it undermines everything that can be apologized for so now we're experiencing a reversion where people who might say let's say Catholics sitting in the pews who felt forced into feeling ashamed under false pretex es that now they just roll their eyes at the thought that the Catholic church has to do anything about indigenous reconciliation because it's all just baloney that's not true it isn't just baloney there are things that we can and must be doing but if you give any Credence to the falsehood you are going to undermine the good that you have been doing and could be doing and that's the tight rope that I think continues to be walked yeah yeah see I I feel like when the when the Bishops apologize for something accepting it as as fact um maybe that's the best they knew at the time whether or not they should have maybe was was there another prudent way what it was done as it was my question is there's still and I'm sure this hundreds of not thousands of Catholics who still get the narrative wrong mhm and there has been no care ction as as far as I know when our Bishop is said I we apologize for the remains of 215 children they haven't gone back to their dases and so you know what that wasn't 100% true MH and I think that's an injustice I think what we have to again distinguish between is what are you apologizing for this story that blew up about the discovery of 215 children's remains was the precipitating cause it was it's what uh reexposed this wound in our country's history about the background story of residential school system period and that there was the desire to apologize that this has had the profound impact that it has in our history isn't a bad thing uh because apologies were already issued apologies aren't new and this is the problem was that this was being treated like nothing has ever been done about this before I agree when this when this broke we had spent 30 years in the church in Canada working on addressing the outcomes from overtime that we slowly grappled with and coming to be aware of that had impact indigenous communities so this wasn't new but it was reposed to the public Consciousness unfortunately it was repr proposed by way of something that was said to be a fact without any substantiating evidence so what were the Bishops apologizing for they were apologizing for the history that we've already apologized for that as it comes back to the surface with full force again they again say we acknowledge this part of our history this participation in this system as something regrettable but it's easy to just become associated with the precipitating cause and that's what I think people were not able to differentiate between and if a bishop were to step forward at the moment when they've said that they regret the residential school Legacy and then call into question the graves when they don't even know anything about the graves because no one knew anything about the graves because nothing was being said except that they were there mhm then they're left standing in the middle waiting for evidence to come down on them either propping up what they've said or making them look like they are aloof and insensitive and uncaring and that their apology is insincere but now we know different and I grant that I grant that I well I actually I won't say that we know different I will say that we still know as little as we always have and now language is being adjusted that would suggest maybe we shouldn't have said what we said in the first place I'm not sure if you're aware but the the cam loops band Yes on the anniversary this year of that initial statement has significantly adjusted the way they describe what in fact was discovered yeah I read that in the National Post which is wonderful to to to

see so let let's go back to that we still don't know then a 100% for sure because there they describe these what was considered remains of children then Graves and or unmarked Graves now they anomalies MH that's what the official statement is anomalies we still don't know then exactly what those anomalies are because have they done any excavations no they have not and the bottom line is this grave site is in an apple orchard and we have surveyed maps that show that in the 19 20s a septic field was dug up and installed there so there's a number of things that could be anomalies below the surface of the Earth in an apple orchard where there's a septic field right so to say that we've discovered these anomalies is a completely moot point who cares about a story where in an apple orchard you had ground penetrating radar discovered that there might be some tree roots underneath the surface go figure there's story there and so the the difficulty is that the adjustment in language is not a correction of anything except an admission of what should have been said in the first place if anything needed to be said at all that's the question that I think we need to be asking did anything need to be said what was there to say and if there was a legitimate concern that ground penetrating radar has uncovered 215 anomalies well then dig up one of them and see what you find and isn't it true within I know saskat and Alberta there's many grave sites that have been not kept not even associated with residential schools I just know where I grew up is because the community doesn't have the money to look after the graves they and then people for things start growing over and you forget where things are it's not ideal but these things happen so isn't it entirely possible that it could be a grave site near the residential school because we do know that first nation indigenous children died from communicable diseases and at a at a higher rate than the rest of the population at the time I think I'm correct in saying that and so it was necessary to have Graves near some of these schools is am I wrong in saying that well wherever people live you're going to have a cemetery because wherever people live they will die life and death these this is not this is not something that was a unique Dynamic anywhere you went to boarding school anywhere this is something else that again when we're talking about distinctions we we've we've talked about this category residential school as if it was something so unique to the Canadian experience residential school was boarding school and Canada was filled with other boarding schools that were modeled after the boarding schools all throughout Europe which is where you went to live and go to school away from your family and almost always it was because you were sent there by your family what was unique in the residential school system was the intentional and hoped for outcome of systematically imposing assimilation that we just can't have all of these people be their own unique different thing and expect to have a unified country well we know we want a unified country so we got to get everyone on the same page that was the modus operandi of the residential school system in this country and that is the tragedy that the Catholic church I don't want to say unwittingly but perhaps unreflectively went along with because it's it's contrary to how Catholic religious have delivered education in most of the rest of the world anywhere else that they've ever gone preserving your language teaching your language raising you up in your culture that that's exactly what Catholic Education has always sought to deliver there was a different expectation from the government run and imposed educational institutions in this country that were meant to be populated by indigenous children they had a different intended outcome than just providing education and we participated in that so was it entirely and exclusively bad no and the reason I can say that is because there are indigenous people who will say I am grateful for my education I enoy enjoyed my time in the residential school and that is a truth and so to refuse those people the ability to say that to deny that they should get to have a voice because it doesn't fall in line with what we've decided is the only acceptable truth of that history that is another Injustice against those people who suffered in whatever other way they suffered while they were there so this this has to be we have to start having rational conversations around the history and not just impose a predetermined version of history on everyone's Consciousness including indigenous peoples and say if you don't get on board with this way of seeing that part of our history then you're an an evil

person I I think what you have just articulated so well even mentioning that there was actually some IND indigenous people that had a positive were grateful for for some some aspects of their experience people don't know I I I don't think the average person within Canada knows that no because of the inflammatory language in the mainstream media that can even I remember watching um like just commercials sometimes would try into Tim Horton had a commercial uh regarding 215 the number was in there and it all of this just reinforces that initial story of mass Graves and as soon as you think say Mass Graves your mind goes to a big pit bunch of bodies dumped in something that might happen in the second first world war Rwanda genocide but this is not what we're talking I really want to make sure we under get this like this is this didn't happen in Canada we we don't have evidence to show that it did I can't say that it didn't happen I can say we don't have evidence to suggest that it did you cannot say something and not have the evidence to prove it that's not how Society functions you don't just get to say something and now it's true because I said it so I will not say that the opposite is therefore true that's faulty logic that you can't arrive at that conclusion the opposite is not automatically true in the absence of evidence but in the absence of evidence you have have nothing to stand on in suggesting that what you've just claimed is true and that's what is problematic about how this has been handled this was stated without any sufficient evidence it was accepted to be true if you suggested that it wasn't you were condemned and excommunicated from polite society and you were not allowed to ask questions or talk about it what is that that is not how Society functions now if someone else can come along and say I have the evidence to show that none of this ever happened I would be equally interested to see their evidence how can you prove that something didn't happen why would we assume that it did and that's exactly the point well I well then I feel that that we should be able to say it didn't happen yeah we you can you can say that but I think it's better said with as much clarity as possible which is to say we know that children died while they were at these schools we have no reason to believe that their deaths were the consequence of some kind of Foul Play or that it was being systematically and secretly hidden and covered up by the perpetrators of their murder we have no reason to believe any of that well if you have no reason to believe it then you just don't say it that's what I'm trying to get at it's not the burden of proof is not on the rest of Canada to prove that it never happened I I I well except that many people do believe it did happen so therefore I think it would be necessary to say it didn't if it now thousands of people weren't saying that it didn't happen or didn't happen well then yeah okay we don't have to address it but because most many people believe that narrative I think it would it serves a point of Justice to say no the there where's the evidence to Clearly say there is no Mass graves in Canada like why can't we say that well you can you can say that I think we should with the understanding that you could be proven wrong if they if they go along and they dig up some spot and they find a pit full of bodies well then guess what there's a mass grave in Canada so my point is when you don't know don't speak that that should just be our general principle if you don't know something then why are you talking about it so if I have not stumbled upon a mass grave if you have not stubbled upon a mass grave if the cam loops band didn't and now themselves are saying by adjusting their language that they didn't well why are we talking about Mass Graves they don't exist they don't exist not because they might not exist but because we don't have evidence to suggest that they do that's that's I I'm I'm a big believer in being clear in our speech and saying only what we know we can say or at least acknowledging where we just do not know where there is uncertainty when you know that in this institution children children died here I don't think it's helpful to say but I'll tell you what didn't happen and then start speculating or or taking for proof or or taking for truth things that you don't have proof of we know that children died in the residential schools and in some cases at an alarming rate compared to the rest of society and there's many societal reasons why that happened there are many shortfalls to the way in which those schools were built operated and provided for that led to those outcomes I'm not going to say that at not any one single one of those places children were not buried in the mass grave they may well have been I think what people and maybe I'm wrong with this when we use that language Mass grave they're not just simply thinking a bunch of people were buried together I think what is a Associated is intentional killing of people and dumping them precisely yeah precisely and that's why when I was first approached by the media to see if I wanted to contribute to the story I said you are responsible for using this reprehensible category in your earliest reportage and you have to address that and I was told well we don't say that anymore we we don't say Mass grave great but for 2 weeks that's the only thing that anyone heard and now how do we reel that back in I was sitting around with a group of people at a at a postsecondary institution where I I do some Ministry and these are highlevel administrators in an institution who were flabbergasted to hear me say I don't think there's 215 children in that grave they they they couldn't believe it because to them I'm Mr indigenous Catholic priest so of course and they said how can you say that I said how can you say that there are nothing has been done to discover whether or not that is the case except ground penetrating radar that is incapable of identifying what it's seeing beneath the surface so how can you just accept that that's what's been found there and the one guy's answer answer to me was what do you mean they didn't dig them

up said they've never dug up anything well then how did they know it was 215 good question and he he he was speechless he didn't he just didn't know what to do why because when you hear that catchy category you don't ask any more questions mhm I'm just cautious about participating in that same behavior from the other side you can't La you cannot promote ambiguity or making Universal statements on either side if you don't know what you're talking about so just be careful about the statements that you

make so where do we go from here we talk about a lot about truth healing and Reconciliation

you're in the circles of this right this is part of your ministry um what's next well I'll only say where I think we in the Catholic Church go from here uh I'm not going to comment on what the federal government needs to do what any particular uh indigenous band and Council a chief and Council need to do I will say as a Catholic priest who has invested an immense amount of my time and effort and energy in the last number of years towards this work that we are going to keep doing what we've been doing all along which is honoring and respecting all of our indigenous brothers and sisters that we are going to continue to provide the Pastoral Care that they ask for that we are going to work towards building up a culture of friendship among our people indigenous and non-indigenous not letting there be this big line drawn between how we do ministry in our dicese so this is indigenous Ministry and this is non-indigenous Ministry but just treating people like they belong in my Parish here now where I'm stationed in Strathmore we're very close uh to the Sika First Nation I see lots of people come and go in either Direction that's how it ought to be that we just live among each other as harmoniously as we can and the Catholic church has a unique capacity to promote that that's what we should be doing and that's what we already are doing and what I know our Bishops are committed to continuing to do and what I know I'm personally going to continue to be doing I I don't need to get caught up in things that pertain specifically to the history of the residential school system and just always be having my head looking backwards at the past when I could be focusing on how am I as a Shepherd going to keep trying to help move people forward into a future so can I ask your thoughts then on regarding moving people forward in the future uh your thoughts on participating in the orange shirt Experience day and the the SLO using slogans like every child matters considering that they were directly inspired after the cam Loop's initial report if I'm if I think I'm right on that but we now know there's a lot of well there are anomalies as that's what we know now so what's your thought and on participating in that and would you participate in orang shirt day I have an orange T-shirt that was given to me as a gift that I love and it has on it uh in black and emblazened image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and if you want me to participate in an orange T-shirt Day event I'm happy to do so but that's the orange T-shirt that I'm going to wear and if I am then accused of not doing the orange T-shirt thing in the right way well then I have to ask the question well what's this orange T-shirt thing about at all is it meant to be showing solidarity with indigenous people okay well I'm an indigenous person who put on an orange T-shirt so what else do you want from me uh but does it have to say 215 on it does it have to mean that I am affirming that this thing is actually true and has actually happened and is what we are lamenting if that's the case then I don't participate in that and I won't so we have to make distinctions as always between what is expected and what is being delivered so if I am being asked to show solidarity with a cause if as long as it's a cause that I can get behind happy to show solidarity and I'm very happy to show solidarity with the cause of promoting indigenous reconciliation indigenous culture and showing my my not only openness but my love for that because it's part of who I am if what's expected of me is that I'm participating in some kind of politically motivated campaign that affirms things to be true that we don't even have any evidence of well I'm not participating in that and if that means that now I'm on the wrong side so be it but what I find very disingenuous about all of these campaigns is I don't know who comes up with them but now they're the masters of what it means to be part of it and if you don't fall exactly into line with what it is supposed to mean well then you're worse than not participating in it you're undermining it something isn't supposed to be able to be undermined if it's clear and open and inviting of anybody who's willing to participate in it so I think that we need to also say if I don't wear an orange T-shirt I'm not a bad person it's the same thing as I tell anyone who tells me that they're uncomfortable participating in uh something like a smudging uh ceremony if they're participating in nowadays we see especially in western Canada a lot of Civic functions will begin with some kind of inculturation moment or the involvement of of an indigenous uh ritual if someone says I'm not comfortable participating in it I say good don't don't participate in things you don't understand things that you are not comfortable with because that's disingenuous it it only looks like something that isn't actually true that's what I think we need to work on is getting over looking like something or sounding like something if we don't even actually believe it thanks for your com thanks for answering my questions um I I appreciate the conversation well thanks for asking any closing comments or are we good here uh no I I think I just I want to say let us work together in promoting actual reconciliation which only comes by embracing the truth