Church Has No Plans to Remove Shoes Memorial
Written by Paul Graif on 22 June 2021
After some confusion in Kahnawake, there has not been a request to remove the shoes that were placed in front of the St Francis Xavier Mission. The shoes were placed there as a memorial after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Residential School in Kamloops, BC last month.
“The Church is not going to take down the monument,” said Father Vincent Esprit, the spiritual leader of the Kateri Church. “The monument will remain intact. This is a monument that speaks to peoples hearts and pains and frustrations and anxieties. So the monument has a lot of meaning and is going to stay there for as long as long as the people of Kahnawake want it to stay. The Church is not going to touch it at all, at all, at all. I wanted to reassure the people of Kahnawake that the monument will stay as long as they want it to stay.”
The confusion apparently began after some of the stuffed animals that are at the monument began to smell and a request was made to have those removed for sanitary purposes.
