Letters: what caused the deaths of Indigenous children? – The B.C. Catholic

Im a 100-year-old retired RN and remember my days on the hospital childrens ward. Every winter we had many Indigenous children with respiratory problems. It seems they had poor resistance to the diseases of the white settlers.

Now can you imagine a large group of Indigenous children in a school? Everything was foreign to them the people, the lifestyle and the diet and here they were crowded together.

Colds spread like wildfire, as did other diseases as they had no resistance to our ailments. All the schools had were a few caretakers no medicine, no nurses, no medical care at all.

How did the caretakers manage the institutions, feed the children, and care for the sick without any help? Its very likely that this residential school lifestyle caused a heavy mortality rate.

Some children ran away. Did they reach safety or perish? Were there some suicides? All these questions and conditions must be considered before passing judgment on the caretakers of these institutions.

C.M. BourgeoisVictoria

Studies show that more than 40 per cent of women who have had an abortion were churchgoers when they ended their pregnancy. That means the fight for life starts right in our own churches by being a voice of hope to the ones we sit next to every Sunday.

In addition, 77 per cent of Canadians think Canada already has an abortion law, yet it is only democratic country in the world with no abortion law. You can have an abortion for any reason or no reason at all, all the way up to the moment of birth.

God is pro-life and against euthanasia. With the federal election coming up, lets remember which parties allow pro-life MPs and oppose euthanasia.

Dean ClarkLangley

David Bairds Aug. 2 review of The Chosen needs to be counterbalanced with some due skepticism.

The adulation the show has received, even when muted as is the case of the B.C. Catholic review, is in some sense troubling. The Chosen is a poetic interpretation of the Gospels that often shares more in common with daytime soap operas and late-night sitcoms than with the biblical source material.

Is this wrong? Perhaps not. We have been making art out of the Gospel narratives for a long time. But The Chosens modern twists make it feel different somehow.

It is always trying to make you feel something, which again is not wrong in and of itself, but given that the show is primarily a Protestant production, Catholics should be wary of how this reality impacts their perception of the Gospels more broadly. Catholics do not believe an evangelical conversion experience is necessary to have a relationship with Christ, and it is significant that by the end of the second season there is not a single character who does not come to Christ through any other means.

The reason the show is so compelling is the very reason we should approach it with caution: it takes significant poetic liberties with characters and events from the Gospels. Too many people are saying the show is an authentic representation of the Gospel stories, and the fact that most laymen will have a difficult time separating the historical truths from the fictions is not something we should gloss over.

Of course, watch the show. I would never presume to disagree with David Bairds careful recommendation, but dont be surprised if suddenly the Matthew in your bible becomes the Matthew from The Chosen.

Nicholas ElbersMaple Ridge

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Letters: what caused the deaths of Indigenous children? - The B.C. Catholic