“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Pontifex said.
MASKWACIS, Alberta — Pope Francis issued a historic apology Monday for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families and marginalized generations.
Francis' words went beyond his earlier apology for the “deplorable” abuses committed by missionaries and instead took institutional responsibility for the church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” assimilation policy, which the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said amounted to a “cultural genocide.”
“I’ve waited 50 years for this apology, and finally today I heard it," survivor Evelyn Korkmaz said. “Part of me is rejoiced, part of me is sad, part of me is numb.” She added, however, that she had hoped to hear a “work plan” from the pope on what he would do next to reconcile, including releasing church files on children who died at the schools.
Despite the solemnity of the event, the atmosphere seemed at times joyful: Chiefs processed into the site venue to a hypnotic drumbeat, elders danced and the crowd cheered and chanted war songs, victory songs and finally a healing song. Participants paraded a long red banner through the grounds bearing the names of more than 4,000 children who died at or never came home from residential schools; Francis later kissed it.
While the pope acknowledged blame, he also made clear that Catholic missionaries were merely cooperating with and implementing the government policy, which he termed the “colonizing mentality of the powers.” Notably he didn't refer to 15th-century papal decrees that provided religious backing to European colonial powers in the first place.
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