Emboldened Survivors Confront Clergy

A crowd of nearly one hundred people besieged the front entrance of Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Vancouver last Sunday, chanting "Where are the Children?!" as residential school survivor Rick Lavallee handed a Letter of Demand to a priest after the intended-recipient, Archbishop Raymond Roussin, quickly left town for Mexico.

The Letter, addressed to Roussin, calls on him and the Catholic leaders to disclose the buried location of all the children who died or disappeared in Catholic residential schools. When Rick and other survivors found that Roussin had scurried away, a copy of the Letter was tacked to the front door of the church, and also handed to priest and church rector Glenn Dion.

The event drew a huge media crowd, including every major TV, newspaper and radio in Vancouver, and was even publicized as the main story on the noon hour CBC radio broadcast the previous day.

"This has never happened before" commented rally organizer Kevin Annett. "We've finally broken into the mainstream. It's an indication of how quickly their whole house of cards is collapsing". →

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