De Margerie Ecumenical Lecture 2022 showcases yearning for connection, reconciliation

The 2022 De Margerie Ecumenical Lecture was billed as a conversation between two bishops from different churches and different backgrounds.

The goal was to enter into dialogue and share the story of their journeys toward reconciliation. While confronting the truths of the past, they planned to reflect on their interrelated commitments to ecumenism and reconciliation.

The hope was that together, they could help participants dream new pathways forward.

The lecture, held Tuesday, March 15, 2022, was the ninth since the De Margerie Lecture series was established as a collaboration between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism, and St. Thomas More College to welcome global ecumenical leaders to our prairie soil.

It was named in honour of Fr. Bernard De Margerie, an ecumenical pioneer in Saskatoon and founder of the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism in 1984.

While past lectures have welcomed speakers from far and wide, this year, the more than 300 in attendance at STM College and online heard voices from closer to home.

Bishop Chris Harper is from the Onion Lake First Nation and is the Anglican Bishop of Saskatoon. Archbishop Don Bolen is from Gravelbourg and is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Regina. And, rather than a more traditional lecture, organizers invited the two church leaders to engage in dialogue.

“Both in Anglican-Roman Catholic relationship and in the relationship between Christian churches and Indigenous peoples today, we use the metaphor of walking together,” said Archbishop Bolen, as he kicked off the evening. “When our churches both arrived together on this land, Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops did not sit down to have friendly conversations in the public domain to ask what they could do together and what they could learn together.

“In fact, relations were very tense. And that had a negative impact on Indigenous people, as well. So, this is an opportunity and a gift that comes with this moment.”

Archbishop Bolen put forward four main areas to touch upon during the evening:

• What would it mean for Anglicans and Roman Catholics to walk together in a good way today?
• What would it mean for us, separately and together, to walk together with Indigenous peoples in a good way?
• What should we be doing together? The famous ecumenical Lund Principle from 1952 says that Christian churches should do all things together, except where deep differences require that we act separately.
• What should we be learning from each other? I ask this specifically from a Roman Catholic perspective because I know that the Anglican Church in Canada has taken some profound and significant steps in terms of fostering closer relations with Indigenous peoples, and the Catholic Church has a lot to learn.”

Afterward, audience members were invited to ask questions to spur further discussion between the bishops.

The event was sponsored by the Leslie and Irene Dubé Chair for Catholic Studies at STM and the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism.

To watch a recording of the discussion, please click on the link HERE