Pope apologises for ‘evil’ of Canada’s residential schools
Warning: The story below contains details of residential schools that may be upsetting. Canada’s Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.
Canada – Pope Francis has apologised to Indigenous people in Canada for the Catholic Church’s role in abuses they suffered at residential schools, the forced-assimilation institutions that First Nation, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend for decades.
After a visit on Monday to the former site of Ermineskin Residential School in Maskwacis, in the western province of Alberta, the pope said he travelled to Canada “to tell you in person of my sorrow [and] to implore God’s forgiveness, healing and reconciliation”.
“I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry,” Pope Francis said during a ceremony in Maskwacis, describing the effects of residential schools as “catastrophic”.
“What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said. “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples.”
Ermineskin, which operated from 1895 to 1975 and was run by the Catholic Church, was one of Canada’s largest residential schools. The institutions were set up by the government and run by various churches to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children into mainstream European culture.
More than 150,000 First Nation, Metis and Inuit children were separated from their families and forced into residential schools between the late 1800s and 1990s. They were subjected to widespread physical, psychological and sexual abuse and banned from speaking Indigenous languages, and thousands of children are believed to have died while in attendance.
The system amounted to “cultural genocide”, a federal commission of inquiry, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), said in 2015.
“You have travelled a long way to be with us on our land and to walk with us on the path of reconciliation,” Dr Wilton Littlechild, a survivor of Ermineskin Residential School who has long advocated for a papal apology, told Pope Francis during Monday’s ceremony, just before the apology.
“For this, we honour you and extend to you our most heartfelt welcome.”
The pope’s six-day visit to Canada this week comes after hundreds of unmarked graves were recently uncovered at several former residential school sites, spurring renewed calls for accountability from the government and the Catholic Church, in particular.
For decades, Indigenous survivors called on the pope to apologise for the church’s role in the abuses that took place at residential schools, and an apology was one of the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action in 2015 (PDF).
Speaking to an Indigenous delegation that travelled to Rome earlier this year, Pope Francis in April apologised for the “deplorable conduct” of members of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis has arrived. He is visiting Canada to deliver the Roman Catholic Church’s apology to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Survivors and their descendants – for its role in operating residential schools, and for causing pain and suffering that continues to this very day. pic.twitter.com/bd07K1pXLF
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 24, 2022
But some community leaders said the pope needed to deliver his apology on Indigenous lands.
Pope Francis’s visit and expected apology has drawn diverse reactions from Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors, with some welcoming it as an important step on the path to healing, and others saying it is too little, too late.
Some also argue that the Catholic Church needs to do much more to atone for its role in residential schools, including releasing all the documents related to the institutions, providing full reparations to survivors and communities, and helping bring the perpetrators of abuse to justice.
“Understanding that survivors will each have their own vision of reconciliation, for many, anything less than an apology that includes an unqualified admission of the crimes committed, a full acceptance of responsibility, and a commitment to end the abuse and make full reparations will be just another empty apology and continuing injustice for First Nations, Inuit and Metis,” Pamela Palmater, professor and chair of Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote in the Toronto Star newspaper on Sunday.
“I am a survivor myself. It is not easy for someone like myself to accept an apology when it’s not specific enough,” Byron Joseph, chair of the board of directors of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, also said in a statement this month. “We need action and we need continued support for ongoing healing.”
As his flight left Rome for Edmonton on Sunday, Pope Francis said his trip was one of “penance”.
He is expected to meet with Indigenous people at Sacred Heart Church in Edmonton on Monday afternoon, and he will hold mass at Commonwealth Stadium on Tuesday before travelling to a popular pilgrimage site in Lac St Anne, Alberta, later that day.
On Wednesday, he will travel to Quebec City, where he will meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Mary Simon, and hold mass at one of the oldest cathedrals in North America on Thursday.
His trip to Canada will end in Iqaluit, in the northern territory of Nunavut, on Friday.
