Pope Francis on Monday held his first Vatican meeting with visiting Indigenous groups from Canada who were seeking a papal apology over the Church’s involvement in a residential schools system that abused Indigenous children for more than a century.
From the 1880s to the 1990s, at least 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families by the Canadian government and sent to residential boarding schools. The schools were mostly run for the government by the Catholic Church. Sexual, physical and emotional abuse were commonplace in the schools but while Francis and other popes have expressed sorrow over what happened, they have stopped short of apologising.
Last year, several Indigenous communities announced that they had discovered signs of human remains, likely to be those of children, in unmarked graves on the grounds of former schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Numerous survivors testified at hearings of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that children died in the schools and were buried on the grounds.
Following extensive hearings, the commission called the school system a “conscious policy of cultural genocide”. Monday’s meeting took place at the Apostolic Palace where Francis received members of the Métis and Inuit Indigenous groups, two of the three largest in Canada, with more meetings scheduled through the week.
The delegates said as well as hoping to persuade Francis to become the first pope to apologise for what happened at the schools, they were encouraging him to travel to Canada to offer his apology to survivors and Indigenous communities. “We hope that the Church can finally begin a meaningful and lasting reconciliation,” said Cassidy Caron, president of the Métis National Council after Monday’s hour-long meeting that she described as “comfortable”. Six delegates are attending from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Bishop William McGrattan, vice-president of the Conference, said the Canadian Church hopes the discussions will be an historic moment for all Canadians, but “most especially our First Nation and our Métis”.
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