It used to be how missionary work... worked. It's gradually been reducing that thought of God's will means that the missionaries get to do whatever they want. And, tbh, I more worried how China does it currently more than missionaries now. Temporary land grabs are still land grabs. At least missionaries build something and leaves instead of holding the debt on construction of them to control the locals
I'm pretty sure tstorm said a pandemic not the pandemic
Coulda fooled everyone, that's exactly what it looks like to the majority of the world and the people the catholics have "helped".
How is this not an example of what-aboutism? Or is your point more that the US having done it too absolves the Catholic church of guilt?
It's not an example of what-aboutism. What-aboutism would be if I was saying the US did it too, so why are we even talking about Canada? It's invoking a comparable thing to distract from the point. That's not what I'm doing. I'm imagining a world where the Catholics were given responsibility for caring for the indigenous children of Canada and decided they didn't want to be involved in that and abandoned their schools. What would Canada have done? They might have run the schools themselves (and based on the government using children as malnutrition test-subjects, it would have probably been worse). Is there an example of a government running their own schools to try and Anglicize indigenous people? Yes, it's the next country down. So in our counterfactual world where the Catholic Church isn't involved, is life better or worse for those indigenous Canadian children?
That is never how missionary work worked. You have to understand, the history books tend to focus on conquerors. Like, sure, the conquistadors were generally Catholic, and certainly had some pompous things to say about how blessed by God they were, but that isn't the Catholic Church. They aren't priests. They aren't going to be sainted for the efforts. The world is full of school and hospitals named after saints whose work is being emulated by those Catholics offering their help.
These are two extremes. There were imperialist conquerors and kindly-minded missionaries just wanting to spread the word of god. There are documented instances of missionaries essentially as cultural shock troops working with the colonial administrations to control the native populations, seeing religious conversion and colonial domination as all but inseparable. There are also documented examples of missionaries appalled at the maltreatment and near-slavery of natives, or making efforts to preserve their cultures, and a lot of inbetween. I don't think the former can be casually whitewashed because the latter also existed.
I'm not saying you said that. Pay attention.
Well, I'm not particularly targeting Catholics. It's a common problem for a variety of religious folk back in the day, and if you squeeze the definition a little, atheists from Soviet Russia.
But you did say the US did it too. In fact you brought it up in the context to suggest this means that the Catholic church was not at fault for running the genocidal institutions.
The world is full of unmarked mass graves on catholic lands. It just keeps happening. Missionaries kill and abuse natives, and are some of the first and fiercest to do so.
It's funny you say that. From my perspective, the argument is over, as there really isn't any successful disagreement with me in any of the responses. Like, I'm going to respond to people and enjoy the continued conversation, but there's only one user actually arguing about the mass grave in particular, and they aren't winning.
You should probably pay attention yourself. I introduced that pandemic as a reference point to other epidemics, of which there are many recorded that swept through those schools. Talking about how they didn't have to deal with anything that bad is ignoring all the existing documentation of those schools. I provided you a source that the Canadian government destroyed most of the funeral records from the Kamloops Residential School. Insisting the school never kept those records is wasting your breath. The government mandated indigenous children be crammed into boarding school, the government neglected them, and then the government shut down the operation and destroyed the records. Putting the blame on anyone else is stupid.
And? Are you upset with the Catholic Church for being the ones there to bury the dead of the poor and downtrodden?
There are examples of bad people doing bad things in any role, but that's hardly a way to define the role itself. Conqueror's are typically bad, because conquering is a bad role to take. Missionaries are typically good, because missionary work involves helping people. I certainly don't mean to say that every missionary in history was a great person that was kind to everyone, but conceding that is a far cry from treating missions the same as manifest destiny.
That they abused and killed? Yeah, I would say the catholic church has some serious issues to deal with.
That you have decided on your own that they abused and killed. Because being angry at the Catholic Church somehow makes you feel better than thinking that society neglected and abandoned people, and Catholics institutions were often the last people there trying to save them.
Pffffft.
en.wikipedia.org
Funny enough, neither the word "kill" nor the word "sell" show up anywhere in that article. What does show up, is that once again, the government took a Catholic group doing good things and dropped a bunch of problems into it. "Oh, you're doing some mighty fine hospital work there, sisters," The Galway Board of Health said. "What if instead, we sent you every pregnant and unwed woman in the region. And decades later, when people realize the infant mortality was higher at this place where we sent all the poor women society found undesirable to have at the normal hospitals, we'll let everyone blame the Catholic nuns."Pffffft.
Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home - Wikipedia
Oh yes, the catholics have never done anything wrong, I'm sure.
Besides kill the babies they couldn't sell and bury them in an unmarked mass grave.
It just keeps happening.
"They didn't sell children, they just sent them for illegal adoptions."
en.wikipedia.org
What weirds me out is that the Church didn't bother with even the most basic of face saving or arse covering. And if they truly were being fucked by the Canadian government of the day, they could have simply turned it all back on them by just making the biggest fuss imaginable. 200 dead kids because the bureaucrats tried to over-egg your pudding and it failed? Call the damn papers. Start doing services for every single child; put the word out in the community that vigil needs to be sat for that many souls because the shitheads in charge have fucked up. Its not like they don't have a heirarchy they can complain to who can bring significant pressure to bear.
