The Art of Prayer, Part 17

   Warning: The contents of this post may be disturbing to some readers. 

  "Therefore, this is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies says concerning the prophets, 'I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. For it is because of Jerusalem's prophets that wickedness has filled the land.'" Jeremiah 23:15

  There were several orphanages in Quebec during the forties and fifties. Once again, the Roman Catholic Church, its nuns and priests are at the centre of a story of physical and sexual abuse, human experimentation, neglect and murder. These Duplessis Orphans weren't necessarily orphans at all but may have been infants born out of wedlock or children who had been forcibly removed from their families due to poverty, unemployment or illness. 

  The name comes from the Quebec premier at the time who used his power to facilitate the opening and expansion of these facilities. 

  For funding purposes, many of these innocent children were mislabeled as mentally unstable. Entire orphanages became psychiatric facilities. There was more money in madness than care yet the care of these mislabeled children was basically non-existent. They were fed and watered. Sometimes.

  Seven religious communities were involved: the Sisters of Providence, the Sisters of Mercy, the Grey Nuns of Montreal, the Sisters and the Brothers of Charity, the Little Franciscans of Mary, the Brothers of Notre-Dame-de-la-Misericorde. (Wikipedia.)

  The Roman Catholic church, to this day, has denied any wrongdoing.

  There are hundreds if not thousands of unmarked graves outside these facilities where children who died were packed into cardboard boxes, buried and forgotten.

  In 2021, the few remaining survivors of these institutions were still seeking reparation for the trauma they suffered. There has been no admission of wrongdoing by the Church or the government to this day.

  How many others are out there? From different times and different places?  How many children are still trapped in a cycle of violence at the hands of their God fearing "care-takers?"

  I don't understand.

  I don't understand how people who have dedicated their lives to God can do such things; whose names are a lie. Where was charity? Or mercy?

  I don't understand how such violence and disregard for life was ever, ever considered a normal and acceptable practice by those who claim to serve the Lord. Yet...yet...and I weep...I have no doubt it still goes on today. 

  I don't understand...the horrific treatment of generations of Canada's Aboriginal children.

  I don't understand why the terrible things happened at the Catholic Boy's school in Newfoundland. 

  I don't understand why these Duplessis "sinful bastard" infants (the church's words, not mine) had no one to protect them

  Lord, I don't understand it at all.

  I am struggling not to be judge and jury.

  I am overwhelmed with grief knowing that throughout the world children are still exploited, enslaved, and left to die at the hands of man, religious or otherwise.

  

  Last night I came before the Lord and began drawing this pain and confusion. There were no words that could come remotely close to expressing my heart. It's not finished because I am not finished although part of me dreads spending time in the darkness that flowed from my pencil.

  It began with drawing the letters, "Hear my cry, O God."