"A 2001 report by the Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada documents the responsibility of the Roman Catholic Church, the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the federal government in the deaths of more than 50,000 Native children in the Canadian residential school system.

The report says church officials killed children by beating, poisoning, electric shock, starvation, prolonged exposure to sub-zero cold while naked, and medical experimentation, including the removal of organs and radiation exposure. In 1928 Alberta passed legislation allowing school officials to forcibly sterilize Native girls; British Columbia followed suit in 1933. There is no accurate toll of forced sterilizations because hospital staff destroyed records in 1995 after police launched an investigation. But according to the testimony of a nurse in Alberta, doctors sterilized entire groups of Native children when they reached puberty. The report also says that Canadian clergy, police, and business and government officials "rented out" children from residential schools to pedophile rings.

The consequences of sexual abuse can be devastating. "Of the first 29 men who publicly disclosed sexual abuse in Canadian residential schools, 22 committed suicide," says Gerry Oleman, a counselor to residential school survivors in British Columbia."


From Amnesty Magazine. Read and weep. Christianity has a lot to answer for.