(LifeSiteNews) –– Amid a rash of church burnings spurred on by allegations of “unmarked graves” at defunct religious-run residential schools for indigenous children, a recent excavation conducted at one of the site’s has turned up no “conclusive evidence” of human remains.
The former Pine Creek Residential School, located in Pine Creek, Manitoba, was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969 – the site is now home to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church. Government records show a total of 21 recorded deaths happening at the school.
The four-week-long excavation, which turned up no evidence of human remains, was led by the First Nation’s tribe Minegoziibe Ashinabe, and came after a total of 14 abnormalities were found at the former school by ground-penetrating radar.
Chief Derek Nepinak of the Minegoziibe Anishinabe in a video posted to social media last Friday said that as a “community we were preparing for more than one possible outcome, which meant we would prepare for the worst but hope for the best.”
MANITOBA—Chief Derek Nepinak of the Minegoziibe Anishinabe has announced excavations under a Catholic Church concluded with NO EVIDENCE OF HUMAN REMAINS.
Accusations of former students claimed Church Resident Schools covered up abuse and deaths of indigenous children.
1/3 pic.twitter.com/WOCwpwIwM3— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) August 21, 2023
Nepinak explained that the excavation was done by a team of researchers from the University of Brandon, the same team that law enforcement relies upon for their archeological evidence gathering
Canadian indigenous residential schools, although run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and setup by the federal government at the time.
Since the spring of 2021, well over 100 churches, most of them Catholic, have either been burned or vandalized across Canada. The attacks on the churches came shortly after the unconfirmed discovery of “unmarked graves” at now-closed residential schools once run by the Church in parts of the country.
Nepinak, in the video, said that the lack of evidence found at Pine Creek “should not be deemed as conclusive of other ongoing searches and efforts to identify reflections from other community processes including other (ground-penetrating radar) initiatives.”
In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.
Last year, Canada’s House of Commons under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, declared the residential schools to be formally defined as a “genocide” despite no indication that was the case.
Nepinak has asked that people continue to search for truth and not compare the results of their excavation to others across Canada.
“This does not mark the end of our truth-finding project,” said Nepinak.
There have been other excavations conducted at residential schools that have turned up no human remains.
Despite the massive number of church fires in Canada, some of which just happened only a little over a month ago, former Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez made the brazen suggestion recently that the slew of anti-Christian church burnings could be remedied through further “online” internet regulation.
Residential schools were mandated via government decree
While it is true that some students were traumatized by their experience at the schools, this was not a universal experience and is not unique to residential schools, as some students do not adjust well to boarding schools in general.
Canada’s Residential School system was a structure of boarding schools funded by the Canadian government that ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.
Some schools were run by Catholic religious orders that had settled in Canada. While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the past wrongs led to anti-Catholic sentiment, which exploded last summer after the discovery of the “unmarked” graves in Kamloops, British Columbia.
When it comes to the reported discovery of unmarked graves at the Kamloops Residential School, recent emerging evidence undermines the mainstream media and government narrative that the Catholic Church was secretly burying children.
Last July, Pope Francis made an Apostolic “pilgrimage” to Canada, visiting exclusively First Nations peoples in Alberta and Quebec. While in Quebec, he joined a pagan “smudging” ritual before he gave a lengthy speech where he conveyed “deep shame and sorrow” for the role played by Catholic Church members in government-funded residential school abuses.
The pope made the apology despite an investigation from January 2022 reporting that no graves have been found.
Canadian Catholic prelates have continued to comply with media and government pressure to apologize for the Church’s role in the residential school system.
Trudeau in 2021 waited weeks before acknowledging the church vandalism, and when he did speak, said it is “understandable” that churches have been burned while acknowledging it to be “unacceptable and wrong.” He later also demanded that Pope Francis apologize.