Fire destroys Catholic Church north of Edmonton, RCMP say blaze suspicious

Bushell says the two main steeples and front facade of the church are completely gone.

Bushell, a former firefighter, says the cause of the fire is undetermined.

“Certainly the timing is unfortunate, given that it is a rather iconic Catholic Church in our community and with the timing of sad events that have been uncovered in the country, right now,” Bushell said Wednesday in a phone interview from the scene.

Four small Catholic churches on Indigenous lands in rural southern British Columbia have been destroyed by suspicious fires and a vacant former Anglican church in northwestern B.C. was recently damaged in what RCMP said could be arson.

The fires happened less than a month after the discovery of what’s believed to be the remains of 215 children in unmarked graves at a former residential school site in Kamloops, B.C.

The Cowessess First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan also announced last week that ground-penetrating radar detected 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School.

Some 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, which operated for more than 120 years in Canada. More than 60 per cent of the schools were run by the Catholic Church.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 30, 2021.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Fire destroys Catholic Church north of Edmonton, RCMP say blaze suspicious

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