'I've waited 50 years for this apology,' says residential school survivor on Pope's statement

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

For Evelyn Korkmaz, a residential school survivor from Fort Albany First Nation on the west coast of James Bay, an apology from the leader of the Catholic church has been a long time coming.

"I've waited 50 years for this apology and finally today, I heard it," said Evelyn Korkmaz.

Korkmaz attended St. Anne's residential school between 1969 and 1972, and is a founding member of Advocates for Clergy Trauma Survivors in Canada. She travelled from Ottawa to hear the apology, and said it evoked mixed emotions.

"Unfortunately a lot of my family members, friends, classmates and members of my community that went to residential school were not able to hear it because they passed on through suicide, alcohol addiction and other substance abuse because they could not live with the trauma they endured in these residential schools," she said.

In his first public address on Monday since arriving in Canada, Pope Francis expressed deep sorrow for harms suffered at residential schools and asked forgiveness for church members' co-operation with government policies of assimilation.

Speaking in Spanish, with translation in English, he said he was "deeply sorry" for "the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples."

"I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the Church and of religious communities co-operated, 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," he said.

"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.

"I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples."

The apology was made at the powwow grounds in Maskwacis, south of Edmonton. Hundreds of First Nations, Métis and Inuit residential school survivors and their families were in attendance. 

The Pope's visit to Maskwacis is part of a six-day "penitential pilgrimage" that the head of the Catholic Church is on to express "sorrow… healing and reconciliation" between the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples. The pontiff arrived in Canada on Sunday and will also visit Quebec City and Iqaluit.

Before making his address, the Pope briefly visited the Ermineskin cemetery and the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School. Five teepees are now erected where the school once stood.

"When I was waiting for the Pope at the old residential school site, I could just picture my first year in school," said Chief Randy Ermineskin from the Ermineskin First Nation.