After years of repeated requests from Canadian leaders, Pope Francis issued an apology on Monday to the country’s indigenous peoples for the church’s role in maintaining boarding schools where cases of violence against children have been recorded.
The Catholic Church leader said he was sad and ashamed. “We know how nefarious the assimilation policy, which included these schools, was,” Francis told an audience full of indigenous representatives in the province of Alberta. More than once, he received a standing ovation.
The Argentine criticized the colonization. “When the settlers arrived here, there was an opportunity for a fruitful encounter, but that was not the case. Indigenous languages and cultures were suppressed; children were exposed to physical, verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse.”
The pontiff had already formalized the apology in April of this year, but at a distance. Now, despite health problems, he is in the country for an official visit that is expected to last six days.
The institutions were designed to erase indigenous culture and forcibly separated at least 150,000 children from their families to assimilate them to Western ways from 1880 to 1990. The National Commission created to investigate the case described it as cultural genocide.
The case gained prominence when, last year, a mass grave with 215 children’s bodies was found in the province of British Columbia. It was the Kamloops Residential School, which operated from 1890 to the 1970s, under the command of the church and the government.
The government of Canada apologized to indigenous communities 14 years ago for this practice and paid billions of dollars in compensation to alumni. The church managed 60% to 70% of the 130 institutions through government contracts. For years, however, the Vatican has been silent on the demand for an apology.
Francis also apologized for that. “Many Christians have adopted a colonialist mindset from the powers that have oppressed indigenous peoples; I apologize for the way in which church members have cooperated, with indifference, in this project of cultural destruction.”
And he continued: “I know that excuses are not a point of arrival, but the first step from the point of departure that will never be enough; there will never be few actions to create a culture capable of preventing these situations from happening again and finding space in the society”.
Indigenous activist Phil Fontaine, 77, who ran Canada’s Assembly of First Nations, said Francis’ action helps to sweep away doubts about the church. “For things to work again, we have to be able to forgive,” he told The New York Times. “And that means making peace with the church.”
Phil was one of the first indigenous leaders to publicly report the abuse he suffered in Catholic schools as a child. 32 years ago, he gave an interview to the CBC network in which he recounted the violence, encouraging other indigenous people to report what they had suffered.
-(plagies)_152444.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1)
