More than 150,000 native children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Friday made a historic apology to Indigenous Peoples for the "deplorable" abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church's misguided missionary zeal.
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - MARCH 28: Pope Francis poses with delegations of Canada’s Métis and Inuit peoples, members of the Métis Nation accompanied by several Bishops from the Canadian Catholic Bishops’ Conference during an audience at the Apostolic PThe Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages.
The trip to Rome by the Indigenous was years in the making but gained momentum last year after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves outside some of the residential schools in Canada. The three groups of Indigenous met separately with Francis over several hours this week, telling him their stories, culminating with Friday's audience.
"Today is a day that we’ve been waiting for. And certainly one that will be uplifted in our history," he said. "It’s a historical first step, however, only a first step." Nearly three-quarters of Canada’s 130 residential schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations. "It is chilling to think of determined efforts to instill a sense of inferiority, to rob people of their cultural identity, to sever their roots, and to consider all the personal and social effects that this continues to entail: unresolved traumas that have become inter-generational traumas," he said.
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