'I can just feel the healing': Pope Francis apology received at Maskwacis, speaks at Sacred Heart Parish
CTV
The head of the Catholic church delivered on Monday an apology to Indigenous people on their own land for its role in Canada's residential schools and the traumas experienced there.
The head of the Catholic church delivered on Monday an apology to Indigenous people on their own land for its role in Canada's residential schools and the traumas experienced there.
In Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, at the site of one of the country's federally funded church-run schools, Pope Francis spoke to First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples across Canada.
"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. Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples. I am sorry," Francis said, referencing the first apology he made to an Indigenous delegation in Rome in April.
Francis spoke in Maskwacis, south of Edmonton, at the site of the former Ermineskin Residential School which operated until 1975.
His remarks lasted about 20 minutes, and were translated from Spanish live.
"I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the Church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools," Francis continued.
"Although Christian charity was not absent, and there were many outstanding instances of devotion and care for children, the overall effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic. What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
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