April 17, 2012
Anishinaabe elders adopt Archbishop Weisgerber
WINNIPEG - Anishinaabe elders and community leaders adopted Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg as their brother April 14 in a traditional ceremony at Thunderbird House in Winnipeg, the first event of its kind in the reconciliation between Indian residential school survivors and missionary churches.
"This is part of a long journey for me," Weisgerber said.
As a priest in Saskatchewan, he had been a pastoral minister at four of what were then called Indian reserves, "but nobody ever talked about the residential schools," he said. In 1990, Phil Fontaine, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, "made a public declaration and released a huge barrage, and more people began speaking and I began to understand," Weisgerber said.
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