Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-01
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Catherine Larochelle, Associate Professor of History, University of Montreal
Organizations like World Vision, Plan International, or Care did not invent child sponsorship: this practice is part of along story. In Quebec, generations have grown up “buying little Chinese children” through the work of the Holy Childhood, a practice today laden with memories… and questions.
Until 1965, primary school children were asked to contribute (to the extent of 5, 10, or 25 cents) to this organization. The expression “buy little Chinese” evokes memories or misunderstandings depending on the age of the person encountering it.
The contributing children received a card with the image or photo of “their” Chinese (or African) child. They were told that the money was used for the conversion, education, and care of these children.
Several people have sincequestioned this practice, for its dimensionsmerchants, its traces ofracial superiorityor the perceived, even real, exploitation of donor children.
The Holy Childhood Association, a Catholic missionary funding organization founded in the 19th centuryeIn this century in France, it has been questioned both regarding the reality of the aid provided and the final destination of the money. Michel Tremblay thus has his mother speak inAssorted candies(2002)A: “Well, what? Are you following me, is that the money? Huh? Do you really know where it goes? Are you taking the boat to China or to the edge of the nun’s drawers?”
We are three members of a research team that has been working for several years on the work of the Holy Childhood and its memory in Quebec. In this context, we have consulted various archives and conducted a series of oral history interviews. The witnesses from the baby-boom generation that we met have, among other things, reinterpreted their Catholic involvement with a Manichean vision of the world in the manner inculcated by the religious context of their childhood, but where the traditional reference points seem to have been blurred by doubt.
Our research, which aims to open a space for dialogue and reflection on the themes of racism, religion, and solidarity, also allows us to answer the question posed by all former child contributors regarding the destination of their donations.
If we first see history as a discipline that produces facts, we argue that it also has a therapeutic and emotional function, putting an end to doubts carried since childhood. These doubts may notably be linked to feelings of betrayal or institutional manipulation.
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“But where was the money going?” Several people we met question the final destination of the money they gave to children. The doubt about the reality of the aid provided, or even the certainty of having been a victim of a scam, makes this question a sort of common memorial refrain.
It is part of the landscape of a faith that is transforming through the secularization of Quebec society, where an increasing embarrassment and mistrust towards theCatholic Church. Our witnesses even go as far as to assert that it is certain that the priests and the nuns were embezzling the funds.
An encompassing and Manichean reading of the Church as a large entity offers a way to understand the formation of sharp impressions towards ecclesiastical financial practices, testimony to a vague feeling of betrayal shared by people for whom religion governed the understanding of the world during childhood.
The memory of involvement in the work is also tinged by scandals ofsexual abuse related to the Catholic Churchas well as those concerning the finances of humanitarian organizations. While the relationship these people developed with the faith and the Church as a child was primarily familial and localized, their current conception is more global. In this context, the Church is not considered in its complexities and various scales.
While oral history interviews highlight this memory doubt and the emotions it evokes, the archives of the work — another source central to our approach — provide answers and reassurance to the witnesses.
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We traveled across Quebec and elsewhere to search the archives of various dioceses (Montreal, Ottawa, Saint-Jérôme, La Pocatière, Amos, Trois-Rivières). In each of them, annual reports were produced based on correspondence received from schools, detailing the amount given to each establishment — both large convents and district schools.
The accuracy sometimes went as far as listing the amounts by class. Annual reports are also produced by the national directorate of the French Canadian sector, presenting the revenues and expenses of each diocese. All these documents circulated within the province.
We also went to Rome where the general archives ofthe work. On site, the details of the central council’s deliberations regarding the allocation to be sent to the different missions can be found. The requests made annually by the missionaries are also kept.
In the Annals of the Holy Childhood, published annually in Paris by the central management of the organization, one finds not only a financial report of the achievements of each region of the world but also the details of the distribution of funds throughout the world (in Asia, Africa, South America, North America, etc.). It is therefore the central institution that manages the distribution of resources, but these are indeed assigned to missions, as promised by the missionary propaganda.
In these various deposits, we have thus scrutinized numerous account books, correspondence, annual reports, detailed lists of allocated amounts… up to the reproaches from the national director of the organization in French Canada to bishops who did not sufficiently support the organization in their diocese or to the nuns who kept the Holy Childhood’s money for their own missions. Thus, the financial and administrative archives of the organization indeed allow retracing the path of the donations and reassuring our witnesses.
Does this exclude small-scale embezzlements? Not at all. But it nevertheless proves that overall, the Holy Childhood fulfills its commitments to the young members.
At the end of the interview, when we asked the witnesses what they would like to know about the history of the Holy Childhood, the question of the fate of their “10 sous” often came up. Faced with these doubts which seemed to be expressed by the children of the past, we were able to respond. The resulting emotional reassurance was palpable.
If scandals of sexual abuse and certain questionable financial practices undoubtedly form part of the history of the Catholic Church, our research shows that there is sometimes a gap between the public image of an institution at a given moment and the reality — much more complex — of its historical journey.
Catherine Larochelle received funding from the SSHRC and the FRQSC.
David Vaillant received funding from FRQSC and SSHRC.
Ariane Marcheterre-Pina does not work for, advise, hold shares in, or receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no affiliations other than her research institution.
–ref. “Have our ten cents really gone to China?”: what the archives of the Holy Childhood tell us –https://theconversation.com/have-our-ten-centimes-really-gone-to-china-what-the-archives-of-the-holy-childhood-tell-278348