On Sept. 10, I gave the keynote address at the annual Manitoba Multifaith Council annual general meeting. I used the occasion to give an update on the Religion in the News project at the Free Press, which is financially supported by about 25 faith groups and organizations and hundreds of individuals in Winnipeg.
I also added some personal reflections on what the last 11 months have been like for me as a religion reporter (hint: hard at times). I closed with some personal thoughts about how Indigenous people might be able to help the interfaith community find ways to address the current impasse due to the war between Hamas and Israel. If you are interested, read on.
2024 marks the fifth anniversary of the Religion in the News project at the Winnipeg Free Press.
It was in March, 2019 when the first story sponsored by the project appeared. It was written by Brenda Suderman and was about how Father Sam Argenziano was being honoured for decades of service to the city’s Italian Catholic community.
As I like to tell people about the
article: “There was a story about a priest on the front page of the Free Press
the other day—and he wasn’t even in trouble!”
That was the first of what’s turned out to be over 975 stories about local faith in the Free Press since that time. When you add in the columns on the faith page, there have been over 1,200 stories and reflections about faith since 2019.
All of this is thanks to local faith groups, organizations and individuals that have supported the Project for the past five years—and especially to those who came on board the first year for this crazy idea to fund religious journalism at the Free Press.
Together, you have created something unique in all of Canada and, indeed, all of North America. There is no other daily media outlet in the U.S. and Canada that supports faith coverage in this way.
At the same time, you have made Winnipeg the only city in Canada that not only has a faith page, but also a faith beat—no other newspaper covers local faith the way the Free Press does.
This is a big change from 25 years ago, when most daily newspapers in this country had a faith page and a faith reporter. Since Mary Hynes retired from the CBC in December, 2023, and wasn’t replaced by that media organization, that makes me the only faith reporter in the country—a strange position to be in, I have to say.
So, take a bow! You created something special here in Winnipeg.
While I am glad about the number of articles that have been published, for me the Project is more than the volume of stories. When it was created, I had other less tangible goals in mind.
One of those goals was to highlight the role that faith plays in the not only in the faith community, but also in the wider community. It’s impossible to tell the story of combatting hunger or homelessness in Winnipeg without also telling the story of faith-related groups that provide food, shelter and other services to hungry and homeless people.
In other words, I wanted Winnipeggers to see that faith was more than something that some people did in their places of worship, or that only was featured on the faith page. It impacts much of daily life in the city through people of faith and through those places of worship—and those stories are found all throughout the paper.
Another goal was to provide balance. News about scandals and religiously-motivated violence will always make the news. But through the Project, I wanted to make sure the positive side was also reported—like the majority of priests like Father Sam who never get into trouble.
Which isn’t to say I have reported about some of the negative things associated with faith—things like the legacy of residential schools. And I have chronicled the relentless decline in religion in Manitoba and across the country as attendance and affiliation falls.
But there are also many positive stories about how people of faith are making a difference in this city. Those deserve to be shared, too.
It was also a goal of the Project to try to reduce hatred. This is important at a time when antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. My hope is that it would be harder for people to hate if they saw the face of another person in a story we wrote.
Is it working? I don’t know; it’s hard to measure and there’s no way to prove it. But I do know that, unlike places like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, we in Winnipeg have not seen the dramatic violence and vitriol over the October 7 Hamas attacks and the war in Gaza—even if there have been some incidents and tension.
Which is not to say Jews and Muslims in Winnipeg don’t feel anxious, insecure and unsafe; many do. There have been reports of threats, hateful e-mails and intimidation by members of both communities, and a few cases of vandalism.
But at least we haven’t seen a firebombing of a synagogue or mosque—so far. I hope it stays that way.
Speaking personally, it was my goal to use my skills to celebrate faith in Winnipeg—to stay busy and engaged in meaningful activity in semi-retirement. And that has been fulfilled! It’s been my privilege to serve the faith community as a faith reporter and columnist. Through it, I have made many new friends and learned many new and interesting things about different faith groups in the city—and enjoyed some wonderful food! Thank-you for the privilege of serving in this way.
And yet, I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t acknowledge that the last 11 months have been hard.
I have watched—and reported—as tensions over the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza have damaged interfaith relations and relationships in Winnipeg and across Canada.
One Winnipegger who has been involved in interfaith relations for over 50 years told me he has never seen relations between people of different faith groups as strained as they are today.
“This is the most discouraging time I’ve experienced,” he said, adding that social media is one of the biggest contributors to challenges since it “gets people all heated up.”
I know a little bit about that heat. The past 11 months have been hard for me as a faith reporter. No matter what I write about that situation—or what I don’t write—it seems that someone will be angry and will let me know about it.
For some in Winnipeg, I am pro-Hamas if I write about Palestinian and Muslim perspectives and pain. Others see me as an Israeli government dupe if I write about the pain being felt by local members of the Jewish community.
I suppose I could take some comfort from being attacked by both sides—it means I’m in the middle. But the e-mails can still sting.
And let me quick to say, as clearly as I can, that what’s happening in the Middle East today is not a religious conflict. Yes, there are religious undertones. And yes, there are some on both sides who use religion to support the conflict. But foundationally it is not a war between differing religious groups, ideas and beliefs—and I hope it will never become that in Winnipeg.
If the conflict isn’t about religion, then why am I—the religion reporter—writing about it? That’s a good question.
The reason is because I have good connections and relationships in the Jewish and Muslim communities. The Free Press knows that and has called on me to use those connections to reach out to people in both groups in order to hear their concerns and fears—and then write about them.
It's an honour to be trusted by members of both communities to tell their stories. But it’s also a burden, since it can sometimes lead to criticism as some people misunderstand my role.
Some, it seems, can’t distinguish between a news story—reporting what people are saying and thinking about an issue—and a column, which contains my thoughts and opinions. I try to tell them the difference, but not everyone seems interested in knowing about it.
And so a story about how Muslims are observing Ramadan while feeling the pain of people in Gaza is seen by some as being anti-Jewish. For others, a story about local Jews going to Israel on a service trip is seen as being anti-Palestinian.
Some days, I just can’t win.
Despite this, I comfort myself by thinking that maybe it was just for such a time as this that the Project came into being, a time when times are tough and people are on edge.
Maybe—just maybe—through the Project people caught up in the situation in the Middle East can see themselves and their pain represented in the Free Press and feel heard.
And maybe—just maybe—people in pain can also read about the pain of others and empathize and sympathize just a little bit, realizing they aren’t the only ones feeling the hurt.
I don’t know if that will happen. I hope it does. But what I do know is there isn’t any other city in Canada where there has been as much local coverage about how people are dealing with events an ocean away. And for that, I take some satisfaction.
As I conclude this presentation, I want to take off my reporter hat for a moment and speak as a member of the larger inter-faith community.
Earlier this year Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for the Advancement of Interreligious Understanding.
Loraine is a former minister at the Augustine and Westworth United churches here in Winnipeg, and has been involved in interfaith work for decades.
At the ceremony, she spoke about the ways faith communities have traditionally—and usually successfully—sought to overcome differences, including during times of heightened tensions.
One way, she said, is by tapping into the compassion and wisdom found in all faith traditions to find the commonalities in each religion.
Another is by resisting “us/them binary thinking, especially in the heat of the moment,” and by being “equally concerned about violence and human rights violations on every side of a conflict.”
But what to do when those ways don’t seem to be working? That’s when Loraine wondered if it’s time to invite Indigenous people, with their traditions of circles of healing and reconciliation, to “help us sit by the fire and have difficult conversations,” as she put it.
Perhaps, she said, that might be “a third way out of our current impasse that deters interfaith gatherings.”
That idea intrigued me. Could Indigenous people offer a way out of our current challenges? I reached out to Stan McKay, an elder and knowledge keeper at Fisher River Cree Nation, to see what he thought about the idea.
For starters, McKay was pleased simply to have been asked the question. “We usually aren’t asked to contribute to solving some of the world’s problems,” he said. “Instead, we are often seen as the problem.”
If asked to help faith communities navigate this challenging time, McKay said he thought Indigenous people would be open to being “part of sharing ideas and possibilities.”
At the same time, he added, they would do it only if invited, and then with caution and humility. Indigenous people, he explained, “know only too well what it is like to be aggressively imposed upon.”
As for how they could help, it could be a series of circle meetings where various perspectives are shared in a way that “allows for conversation,” McKay said, noting that Indigenous people “understand there are many truths . . . it’s a mistake to think all truth is only in one culture or way of life.”
The circle meetings would not be opportunities for making statements and presenting research, as happens in many other settings, he said. Instead, it would be a time to share stories. “We are a people of story,” he said of Indigenous people, adding “everyone has a story, and needs a safe place to tell it.”
Also important would be taking time, not rushing things, McKay said. “It takes time to build consensus, to hear each story, to build community,” he said.
And if, after sharing, what if a decision about agreement can’t be reached? That happens, McKay said, adding that agreement “can’t be forced. People, and the health of the community, is more important than making a decision.”
For me, listening to MacKenzie Shepherd and McKay brought to mind something John Ralston Saul said in his book A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada.
In the book, he talked about how Canada is what he called a Métis nation, a country heavily influenced and shaped by Indigenous ideas of egalitarianism, of a proper balance between individual and group, and of a penchant for negotiation over violence.
But, he went on to say, the history of Canada shows how, over the past centuries, non-Indigenous Canadians forgot the wisdom offered by their Indigenous neighbours. Instead, we believed we, and we alone, had all the best answers.
If Canada is to be successful as a nation, and if we are to find ways to overcome the conflicts that raise tension between us, then maybe we need to reconnect with that original Indigenous wisdom and work together in this fair land.
If that’s true for Canada at large, perhaps it is also true for interfaith relations at this challenging time. Maybe Indigenous people have much to offer when it comes to finding ways share stories, to hear each other and to create space for difficult conversations.
Considering the situation facing us these days, perhaps that’s a good option for how to move forward.
And if it happens, the Religion in the News Project will always be there to help.
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