During his trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked the country’s indigenous people for forgiveness for their suffering in Catholic boarding schools and suggested a path of reconciliation. The Pope with the feather headdress next to chiefs of the large indigenous tribes: It was the symbolic gesture that caused applause during the visit of the Catholic leader on Monday morning (local time) in Maskwacis, south of the western Canadian city of Edmonton.
On Tuesday morning (local time), the pope wants to celebrate mass in Edmonton’s football stadium in front of thousands of people. In the afternoon, a visit to Lac Ste. is almost 100 kilometers away. Anne, an important pilgrimage site for Aboriginal people and Catholics, named after Saint Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, whom Catholics commemorate on this day. The faithful mainly see the Pope sitting down, as he mostly gets around in a wheelchair because of his knee pain, which is still ongoing.
Monday’s encounter with indigenous people in Maskwacis was an early highlight of the Pope’s six-day trip. There, the 85-year-old Argentinian clearly addressed the crimes that staff in boarding schools run by the Catholic Church had committed against indigenous children for decades. Prior to this, he visited a cemetery with First Nations, Inuit and Métis representatives to pray in silence at graves.
“I beg your forgiveness,” said the Pope in the small town of a few thousand inhabitants, where one of the boarding schools once stood. In particular, he apologized for the way in which many members of the Church and religious communities have participated in the “projects of cultural destruction”. This was found “in the system of boarding schools”. Maskwacis was home to hundreds of survivors who once attended boarding schools. Some cried, others applauded the Pope’s words. A woman from the crowd shouted something at him, clearly upset, and walked away.
People came from all over the country. Lizzie and Yvette Daniels, two boarding school survivors, say they drove all night to see the Pope at Maskwacis. “It’s mind-blowing,” said Lizzie Daniels. For them, the most important thing is to hear the Pope’s apology. According to Francis, her sister Linda Daniels met her in March at the Vatican. When she shook his hand at the time, she said, she thought: “Feel our pain.”
After the Pope left Maskwacis, chiefs spoke at a press conference about the meeting with the pontiff. Some said it was only a first step in the Church’s restoration. Another explained that it was not possible to get over the experiences in the boarding schools.
For decades, starting in the 1880s, an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were snatched from their families and placed in church-run boarding schools. In schools, many children experienced violence, sexual abuse, hunger and disease. Hundreds never came home. The last church-run boarding schools closed in 1996. The program, initiated by the state and supported by the church, was intended to adapt the children to Western Christian society.
In his speech to an estimated 2,000 survivors of the boarding schools, Francis repeatedly asked for forgiveness. The Argentine said the policy of assimilation and disenfranchisement was “devastating” and “catastrophic” for the people in these areas. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also attended the meeting. Representatives of the indigenous groups had already visited Francis at the Vatican at the end of March. Even then, the pontiff asked for an apology for the actions of the church.
Francis spoke about how the boarding schools denigrated and oppressed the language and culture of the indigenous people. Children were “abused physically, verbally, psychologically, and spiritually” and “taken from home,” he said. In the afternoon he attended the church of a parish of Catholics and indigenous people. In his speech he called for Christians and indigenous people to walk a common path of reconciliation. The church, in which indigenous and Christian influences flow together, was symbolic of his proposal.
The discovery of hundreds of anonymous children’s graves near the boarding schools since May last year has made their fate known worldwide – although it has been discussed in Canada for years. In 2015, a state-appointed commission described the crimes committed by school staff as “cultural genocide.” Victims are still demanding compensation from the church and access to the church archives, where documents related to the boarding schools are kept.
The encounters with the indigenous people are the main reason for the Pope’s multi-day trip to the second largest country in the world in terms of area with around 38 million inhabitants. He will meet other indigenous representatives in other parts of the country in the coming days.
The pope caused a stir with an apparently short-term change of plan after visiting a church on his trip to Canada. On Monday evening (local time) he was wheeled out of the church in the western Canadian city of Edmonton, where he had previously been for a meeting with a Catholic and Aboriginal church congregation. Apparently, the head of the Catholic Church still wanted to greet believers and visitors who were standing behind a barrier in the fenced area.
Pursued by a crowd of journalists, he was pushed towards the cheering crowd, who shouted something like “Francis, we love you” (Francis, we love you). Meanwhile, the security forces tried to keep the situation under control. With a grin and waving from his car, he then drove away. The main reason for the Argentinian’s multi-day trip is to meet the indigenous people of Canada and ask their forgiveness for violence and abuse at Catholic boarding schools.
