“Faced with this deplorable evil, the church kneels before God and implores his forgiveness for the sins of her children.”
Between 1881 and 1996, more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and taken to residential centers. Many children were starved, beaten and sexually abused in a system Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”
“I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the way in which many members of the Church and religious communities cooperated, above all because of their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminating in the system of residential centers,” said the Pope.
The discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in British Columbia last year brought the issue back into the spotlight. Since then, the suspicious remains of hundreds more children have been found at other former residential schools across the country.
A red banner with the names of the missing children was carried before the Pope.
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Wallace Yellowface, 78, a survivor of a boarding school on the Pikanni Nation reserve in southern Alberta, said the Pope’s message was too little, too late for him.
“It’s too late to apologize and I don’t think it’s going to do me much good,” she said, adding that she was still trying to figure out what happened to her sister, who also attended a residential school.
Before giving his speech, Francis prayed in a field of crosses in the cemetery of the indigenous Catholic parish of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows and passed by a stone memorial at the two residential schools once a the area
Survivors and indigenous community leaders say they want more than an apology. They also want financial compensation, the return of artifacts sent to the Vatican by missionaries, support in bringing to justice an alleged abuser who now lives in France and the release of records from religious orders that ran the schools.
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Some have also called for the Catholic Church to renounce 15th-century papal bulls or edicts that justified colonial powers taking away indigenous lands.
Francis called for “a serious investigation of the events of the past and help the survivors of the residential centers to experience the healing of the traumas they suffered.”
In January, the Canadian government agreed to pay C$40 billion ($45 billion) to compensate First Nations children taken from their families.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops pledged to raise CA$30 million for healing, cultural and language revitalization and other initiatives. The fund has raised $4.6 million to date.
Reuters
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