Pope Francis I started a historic visit to Canada Sunday to apologize to indigenous peoples for abuses committed by missionaries in boarding schools, a major step in catholic churchReconciliation efforts with indigenous communities and helping them heal from generations of trauma.
Francis kisses the hand of a residential school survivor while being greeted at Edmonton, Alberta, by representatives of Aboriginal Canadians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau And the Marie SimonInuk, the first aboriginal governor-general in Canada.
The gesture set the tone for what Francis said as,pilgrimage of repentanceTo atone for the role of Catholic missionaries in the forced assimilation of generations of Aboriginal children – a visit that has stirred mixed feelings across Canada as survivors and their families grapple with the trauma of their losses and receive a long-awaited papal apology.
Francis did not have any official events scheduled for Sunday, allowing him time to rest before his Monday meeting with survivors near the site of a former residential school in. maskWhere he is expected to pray in the cemetery and apologize.
Francis got out of the back of his plane with the help of an ambulance, due to strained ligaments in his knee that forced him to use a wheelchair. The simple welcome party was held in the airport hangar, where original drums and chants broke the silence. While Trudeau and Simon sat beside Francis, a series of Aboriginal leaders and elders greeted the pope and exchanged gifts. At one point, Francis kisses the hand of a boarding school survivor Sheikh Alma Degarlaise One of the first nations of Lake Frog as I got to know him.
“Right now, many of our people are skeptical and are being hurt,” he said. Grand Chef George Arcand Jr. From the confederation of the Treaty of First Six Nations, who received the pope. However, he hoped that with the papal apology, “we can begin our journey of healing…and change the way things have been for our people for so many years.”
Indigenous groups, though, are seeking more than words, as they press for access to church archives to find out the fate of children who never return home from boarding schools. They also want justice for the offenders and monetary compensation and the return of the indigenous artifacts he keeps Vatican Museums.
to gather First Nations National President Rose Ann ArchibaldOne of the country’s most prominent Indigenous leaders, she said several members of her family attended boarding schools, including her sister, who died in one in Ontario. She described it as “an institution of assimilation and genocide.”
“I was overwhelmed with emotion and there were different times on board where I really had to stop myself from breaking down deep,” she said during her fight in Alberta. “I realized that I am a survivor of intergenerational trauma and that there are a lot of people out there like me.”
Francis’ week-long trip – which will take him to Edmonton; Quebec City and finally Iqaluit and Nunavut in the far north – following meetings he had in the spring at the Vatican with delegations from First Nations, Metis and Inuit. Those meetings culminated in a historic apology on 1 April for the “unfortunate” abuses committed by some Catholic missionaries in boarding schools.
The Canadian government acknowledged the prevalence of physical and sexual abuse in state-funded Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s. About 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families They were forced to attend in an attempt to isolate them from the influence of their indigenous homes, languages, and cultures and to integrate them into the Canadian Christian community.
90,000 students alive
Then the Prime Minister Stephen Harper Canada issued an official apology to the boarding schools in 2008. As part of a lawsuit settlement involving the government, churches, and nearly 90,000 students alive, Canada paid out billions of dollars in damages that were funneled to Aboriginal communities. The Catholic Church in Canada says its dioceses and congregations have made more than $50 million in cash and in-kind contributions, and it hopes to add another $30 million over the next five years.
Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission In 2015, the Vatican called for a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil, but after the possible remains of about 200 children were discovered at the former Kamloops residential school in British Columbia in 2021, the Vatican mobilized to comply with the request.
“I honestly think that had it not been for the discovery…and all the lights that have been shed in Oblates or the Catholic Church as well, I don’t think any of this would have happened,” he said. Raymond FrognerHead of the Archives Department at the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation.
Frogner had just returned from Rome where he spent five days at the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which ran 48 of the 139 Christian-run boarding schools, more than any Catholic school. After discovering the gravesOblates’ family finally offered “full transparency and accountability” and allowed him into their headquarters to search the names of alleged sex offenders from one school in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan, he said.
The Inuit community, for its part, seeks the help of the Vatican to extradite one mobile priest, Reverend Joannes Revoire, who served the Inuit communities until he left in the 1990s and returned to France. Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him in 1998 on several counts of sexual abuse, but it was never reported.
Inuit leader Natan Obed personally asked Francis to help the Vatican deliver Rivoir, saying News agency In March this was one specific thing the Vatican could do to bring healing to many of its victims.
A Vatican spokesman was asked about the request Matteo Bruni He said last week that he had no information on the case.
At a press conference Saturday in Edmonton, organizers said they would do everything in their power to enable the school’s survivors to attend papal events, notably Maskwacis’ Apology and Tuesday’s rally at Lac Ste. Anne, a famous pilgrimage site for indigenous Catholics for a long time.
Both are in rural areas, and the organizers arrange shuttles from the various car parks and rides. They noted that many survivors are now elderly and frail and may need accessible transportation, diabetes-friendly snacks, and other services.
The Reverend Christino BuffettThe national liturgical coordinator of the papal visit, which is part of the indigenous heritage, said he hoped the visit would heal those who “have suffered a wound, a cross they have suffered, in some cases for generations.”
Bouvette, a priest in Diocese of CalgaryPapal liturgical events, he said, would have a strong Aboriginal representation—including the prominent roles of Aboriginal clergy and the use of indigenous languages, music, and motifs on liturgical clothing.
Buffett said he’s doing the work in honor of “kokum,” the Cree word for his grandmother, who spent 12 years at a boarding school in Edmonton. Perhaps she would never have imagined those many years later that her grandson would be involved in this business.
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