Reconciliation needs to address Canada’s history of spiritual abuse – IRPP

November 29, 2021

The Catholic Church treated Indigenous spiritual practices as inferior to Christian ones. Now it must apologize for its abuse.

The first time I ever heard of the term spiritual abuse was during a therapy session. As an intergenerational survivor of the Canadian Indian residential school system and the notorious Sixties Scoop, I thought I had managed to discuss just about every type of violence in my ongoing therapy sessions. Spiritual abuse, however, was a novel concept. Gradually, my understanding of the term helped provide me with a much-needed vocabulary that I used to better understand my and my family’s relationships to the past. The words “God wanted this to happen” took on a greater meaning and purpose when considering how spiritual abuse operated within the broader context of settler-colonial Canada.

Read More: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2021/reconciliation-needs-to-address-canadas-history-of-spiritual-abuse/