According to Acadian writer Clive Doucet, the Acadian deportations of 1755 (ex. Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia) and 1758 (Charlottetown, P.E.I.) mark the real beginning of the British Empire but the long, rich and complicated tapestry of Acadian survival remains, on the whole, still unspoken and unacknowledged. In his recent book (Notes from Exile, McClelland & Steuart ), he says that "the story of Acadie is the story of the disappearance of a people from the geography of nations...and it happened at gunpoint" i.e. at British gunpoint. He adds : "It's as if a great broom had swept through Acadian society erasing not just the elders but our history.....Nothing happens in Acadie that is not marked by the Deportation. It is a wind that still blows."

A wind that nowadays seems to herald for Acadians what has been called a transitional-time of cleansing-closing : a time of reconciliation! What transpired in the parish of Mont-Carmel, Prince Edward Island, on April 1st, 2001 indeed reverberates throughout the land of Acadie for a time for genuine reconciliation. The cause of all this commotion : the homily given in French by visiting English pastor, David Adcock, of the Southampton Community Church in England.

A former advisor to the BBC in religious broadcasting for 5 years, thus enriched by a border perspective about the Christian faith today, pastor Adcock met the folks from the Summerside Community Church (P.E.I.) who attended one of the Church's conference in England. Pastor Adcock had then shared the importance of reconciliation between churches and peoples. It was the Summerside congregation that arranged for him to go to Mont-Carmel, a predominantly French Acadian parish, and meet Father Eddie Cormier. He was then invited to speak to the people at their regular Sunday Mass.

Basing his homily on Saint Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians 5 :17ff and also on the theme of the Lenten season : "So many reasons to be reconciled", pastor Adcock spoke on the ministry reconciliation that Christ offers. He spoke these words to the Acadian parishioners of Mont-Carmel : "As an Englishmen, I read about the expulsion of the Acadian people last year when I visited Prince Edward Island for the first time. I was shocked by the way you were treated. If you feel it is relevant for an Englishman, a "pasteur" from Southampton, in the year 2001, to apologize, I want to do so. I want to ask your forgiveness for the way my people treated you".

Pastor Adcock informed the parishioners that he works with Protestant Evangelical groups in Normandy (France) with friends from a Roman Catholic charismatic community. Not far from the beaches where Canadian soldiers gave their lives, in the Second World War, his Church has set up a house called "Sans Frontières" (Without Borders). He added that "just as Christ has reconciled us to God, we too have this ministry of reconciliation".Mont-Carmel parishioners, surprised and overwhelmed, expressed their assent by a heartfelt applause, some in tears.

For a local historian, " it was an incredible and moving experience. It was as if the evils about the deportation of his people, that had been submerged and hidden for so long, were suddenly brought to the surface in the parish where he grew up. At last, to be faced, cleansed and changed" ! It's the beginning of a long process which should end up at Grand-Pré (Nova Scotia) when Queen Elizabeth apologizes to Acadians worldwide for the ethnic cleansing that her royal ancestors and the British government perpetrated against an innocent people.


(Mont-Carmel Parish, P.E.I.)