Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introductions & Opening Prayer
00:03:50 What issues and topics are the subject of Reconciliation?
00:10:35 Identity: living out your multiple identities, especially in light of your Catholic faith? 00:19:40 Identity: enabling and hindering dialogue
00:27:45 What is Reconciliation? Justice, Forgiveness and Healing
00:39:40 What Injustices are in need of repair?
00:52:30 What Healing looks like
01:00:00 How to get there? –> The role of Mercy
01:10:00 The difficulty in moving forward – what works, practically speaking?
01:19:15 Mercy in the life of the Church – Misericordiae Vultus & adopting a spirit of Joy 01:26:45 Striving for genuine vs false Compassion
01:33:10 Sifting fact from exaggeration and falsehood in public discourse
01:42:45 The Papal Visit 2022 and the Indigenous legal landscape
01:53:50 Closing Prayer & Reflection

As Christ taught us and as Aquinas reiterates, “In itself, mercy takes precedence of all the virtues,” since through it, it makes up for each of their deficiencies. In this webinar, we will discuss the topic of reconciliation in light of the upcoming Papal visit, with an aim of identifying concrete ways of moving forward together towards justice, forgiveness and healing. We will explore mercy as a key to frame the way in which people from all perspectives and places in life can enter difficult and fraught discussions such as these, with humility and a willingness to listen and love, first and foremost.

On June 27th, 2022 – the eve of the Papal visit to Canada – we spoke with Fr Cristino Bouvette and Maria Lucas about matters of reconciliation.

Meet our Guests

Fr. Cristino Bouvette

Fr Cristino Bouvette is an Indigenous Albertan ordained in the Diocese of Calgary in 2012. He oversees the St. Francis Xavier Chaplaincy for young adults and is passionate about fostering reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Indigenous Peoples. In preparation for the Papal visit in July 2022, he has been serving as the National Liturgical Coordinator for the Office of the Papal Visit to Canada on behalf of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Maria Lucas

Maria Lucas is a Black-Métis woman whose heritage inspired her to study Indigenous-Crown relations in a historical and political context in her undergraduate degree, which she completed at the University of Toronto. In her studies, she discovered the unique legal framework that informs Indigenous peoples’ relationship with the Crown and she came to understand that the law is key to reconciling this relationship. As a result, she was prompted to pursue law school. She completed her Juris Doctor at the University of Ottawa with a specialization in Aboriginal law and Indigenous legal traditions in 2019. She was recently called to the Ontario Bar as a lawyer. Maria is also a Co-Founder and Secretary of the Indigenous Catholic Research Fellowship and she currently serves as the Indigenous-Government Relations Assistant at Indspire.