The Our Lady of Guadalupe Circle seeks to assist Catholics in their engagement with the Truth and Reconciliation process and its Calls to Action. The Circle seeks first to understand Indigenous Peoples and Spiritualities and their relationship to the Catholic Church. It is by honouring Indigenous peoples, cultures and spiritualities and by acknowledging with sadness the many failures of the past that the work of reconciliation can move forward.
The Circle recognizes that understanding and education must lead to action for reconciliation.
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September 24, 2000
An ecumenical statement entitled “Aboriginal Land Rights: A Jubilee Challenge Facing Canada”, was co-signed by CCCB President, the Most Reverend Gerald Weisner, O.M.I. and other Catholic leaders.
May 1999
A pastoral letter was issued by the CCCB Episcopal Commission for the Evangelization of Peoples, entitled “Rediscovering, Recognizing and Celebrating the Spiritual Heritage of Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples”.
June 15, 1998
A statement of apology was made by Bishop Gerald Weisner, O.M.I., to former students of Indian Residential Schools, at a healing circle at Alkali Lake, in the diocese of Prince George, BC.
March 17, 1998
National Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations and two other Indigenous representatives met with the Executive Committee of the CCCB. During a meeting in Rome with the secretary of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, he had expressed a desire for reconciliation and a new […]
November 26, 1997
Chief Harry Lafond, of the Muskeg Lake Band in Saskatchewan, addressed Pope John Paul II and Bishops attending the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Americas at the Vatican, regarding the relationship between the Christian Churches and the Aboriginal Peoples of America, in response to paragraphs 13, […]
February 1996
Bishop Reynauld Rouleau, O.M.I., of the Churchill-Hudson’s Bay Diocese, apologized to Inuit who were physically and sexually abused at the residential Joseph Bernier School and Turquetil Hall in Chesterfield Inlet, NT, between 1952 and 1969.
December 6-9, 1995
The CCCB contributed to a Sacred Assembly promoting spiritual reconciliation and healing between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginals in Canada, organized by Mr. Elijah Harper, MP for Churchill, and involving Native elders and religious and political leaders. Catholic participants included Sister Eva Solomon, C.S.J., Father Mike Stogre, S.J., Father Gerry Laboucane, O.M.I., […]
December 1995
Publication by the CCCB of the 1993 presentation to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Let Justice Flow like a Mighty River. The publication included workshops designed to increase awareness of the Aboriginal people’s rights and concerns and a summary of over sixty initiatives taken by the CCCB from 1969 […]
November 8, 1993
The CCCB presented a brief, Let Justice Flow Like a Mighty River, to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, reviewing the mission history of the Catholic Church with Indigenous Peoples in Canada and expressing the CCCB’s hope and confidence in the strength of the aboriginal people.