The statement below is commended for sharing in parishes and communities on or before September 30th, known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and as Orange Shirt Day. Additional worship and educational materials are also available to help churches prepare for the day.
The long journey to rebuild the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada is marked on September 30th, so that we will never forget or cease to work for reconciliation. It is a journey of truth-telling and education that must peel away the decades of harm and the ongoing effects that deny Indigenous people respect and dignity as the first peoples of this land.
In the past year, we have continued to hear discoveries of unmarked burial sites at former residential schools that have reopened pain for families whose children never came home. We grieve with those families. Our Archives are open to seek whatever information may assist in finding lost burial records. Anglicans recently joined in a protest at the landfill in Winnipeg to demand the full search of a site where bodies of missing Indigenous women have been found. Our voices join many others in Canada seeking justice and accountability.
The Anglican Church of Canada includes walking alongside the Sacred Circle of Anglican Indigenous peoples as self-governance continues to be established. We continue to promote reconciliation through Indigenous-led healing projects, education in the history of residential schools in our parishes and suicide prevention.
May the work we do together help us to grow into a new relationship as a witness to the mutual interdependence we need in order to flourish as God’s people.
Archbishop Linda Nicholls,
Primate
Archbishop Chris Harper,
National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop
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