July 28, 2022
During his visit, and on behalf of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis apologized to the Indigenous peoples of Canada for the Roman Catholic Church's monumental role in running the Indian residential schools for 3 decades.
The apology was made in Maskwacis, Edmonton (at a former site of the Ermineskin Indian Residential School). On Thursday, July 28th he reiterated his apology in a reconciliation mass held in Quebec. He also made a statement online using his Twitter handle.
In 1876 the Indian Act was enacted to create residential schools to house Indigenous children in Canada. The proposed mission of the Act was for the Catholic Church, in conjunction with the Canadian government, to transition Indigenous peoples to achieve assimilation through education and catechism.
What actually happened at the schools was both horrific and traumatizing. Children were not only separated from their parents for stretches of time but were also abused, sexually, mentally and physically. These schools were in operation from the 1870s, well into the 1990s. The last Indian residential school was closed in 1998. There are still 6000 children that are unaccounted for and unmarked graves are still being found with Indigenous students ( more than 1800 to date).
The apology was largely deemed unacceptable, many pointing out it's lack of sincerity and the Church's evasion of their full role and responsibility. Some survivors are still trying to access their school records which the Church seems unwilling to provide.
The Honourable Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), made a statement in response to the Church's apology to the Indigenous peoples of Canada. While he recognized the "importance of the Pope's apology to Survivors, their families and communities", he also noted that it failed to acknowledge that the Church "was a lead co-author of the darkest chapters in the history of this land."
The former senator called for reconciliation requiring "action, not passiveness" as the "The Pope and the Church remain silent on the most problematic tenets of its belief system: that Indigenous peoples in Canada and around the world [still] should not have the right to practice their own faith, cultures, and traditions."
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