Pope apologises for 'evil' abuse at Indigenous schools in Canada
Pope Francis has issued an historic apology for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families and marginalised generations.
“I am deeply sorry,” Francis said on Monday, to applause from school survivors and Indigenous community members gathered at a former residential school south of Edmonton, Alberta.
He called the school policy a “disastrous error” that was incompatible with the Gospel and said further investigation and healing is needed.
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said.
In the first event of his weeklong “penitential pilgrimage,” Francis traveled to the lands of four Cree nations to pray at a cemetery and then deliver the long-sought apology at nearby powwow ceremonial grounds.
Four chiefs escorted the pontiff in a wheelchair to the site near the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, and presented him with a feathered headdress after he spoke, making him an honorary leader of the community.
Francis' words went beyond his earlier apology for the “deplorable” abuses committed by missionaries and instead took institutional responsibility for the church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” assimilation policy, which the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said amounted to a “cultural genocide.”
Pope Francis' apology was about an official policy which forced more than 150,000 native children in Canada to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes and
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