ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS:

SHOW US THE GRAVES:

It's not a good time for the Catholic hierarchy in Canada. Just as it seemed that they were putting the sex abuse and residential schools scandal behind them they have once more had to go into damage control mode as the arrest of the ex-Bishop of Antigonish, Raymond Lahey, on charges of importing child pornography brought all the dirty linen into the open once more. Lahey is presently out on bail and is staying at the priests' residence of the Archbishopric of Ottawa. In the wake of the scandal the clergy are pulling out the "we are all in this together", but a growing tide of revelations about Lahey's time as a Newfoundland priest, his tastes in porn even back then and a possible cover-up on the part of Church's authorities give grounds to suspect that the clergy have an inner and outer "we". The inner 'we" seem to have possibly involved in a cover-up concerning his tastes, as alleged by Billy and Shane Earle who, at the time, were boys who had been abused at the Mount Cashel orphanage. It also turns out that at least one priest suspected Lahey, but that the hierarchy did nothing to investigate his suspicions. Meanwhile yet more people who allege that they were abused by priests when they were young are cropping up. To follow this story go to THIS AGGREGATOR.

In this climate Kevin Annett, author of 'Hidden From History' which documented much of Canada's shameful history of native residential schools, is travelling in Europe where he is showing his film 'Unrepentant'. This Sunday (tomorrow) Annett will be holding a memorial service just outside the Vatican for the victims of Roman Catholic run residential schools. This is right under the nose of Pope Rottweiller I. In Europe, outside of Ireland, this story has been slower to develop than in North America. Perhaps this has been because the Church there has been better at cover-up. See this Wikipedia article for a rundown on the scale of the scandal across the Atlantic. In the case of Italy there is no "supposition". It is a fact that the Vatican has been engaged in efforts to keep any such allegations secret. This is aided by the fact that the Vatican and Italy have treaties that transfer authority over such charges to the Church. In 2001 the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ordered that all sex abuses cases be transferred to the Vatican. They had previously been handled at the level of the Dioceses. said Cardinal, as the Vatican Secretary of State also ordered that there be total secrecy about the proceedings. This was backed up with the threat of excommunication for anyone privy to such things should they they feel a sudden surge of conscience and speak out. Cardinal Ratzinger is, of course, the present Pope Rottweiller I. This is the man who Kevin Annett will be asking to come clean. Here's the story of Annett's pilgrimage from Larry Gambone's Porkupine Blog.

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Pope Asked To Identify Children's Grave Sites:
Canadian clergyman to ask Pope to identify grave sites and pray with him for those killed by the Catholic church
A clergyman from Canada who helped to force the Pope to issue an apology for the harm suffered by Indian children in Catholic boarding schools will hold a memorial service for those who died in these schools outside the Vatican on the Via Della Conciliazione at 12 noon on Sunday, October 12. He will also be asking the Pope to tell the world where these children are buried.

Rev. Kevin Annett, an award-winning film maker and activist from Vancouver, Canada, wrote to the Pope in February of 2008 on behalf of hundreds of aboriginal families whose relatives died or were killed in Catholic Indian schools. Annett asked the Pope to surrender the remains of these children and identify those responsible for their deaths. The Pope did not reply.

Annett will be asking for an official response from the Vatican to the letter and has invited the Pope to attend the memorial service, "in memory of those killed in the name of Christendom" .

Rev. Annett will be on a speaking tour of Italy from October 9 to 19. He will screen his award-winning film UNREPENTANT with Italian subtitles at public meetings in Rome, Genoa, Firenze, Milan and Parma. He has asked Italians to boycott the 2010 Olympics in Canada until the residential school children are given a proper burial.

Rev. Annett will also be speaking in England and Ireland during October and November.
For more information, contact Kevin Annett at http://ca.mc1105.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca .

His website is http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/ .