Pope Francis expresses regret for Canada’s ‘catastrophic’ education policies

In the Alberta town of MASKWACIS, “Catastrophic” Indigenous residential schools in Canada “destroyed their traditions, split families and disenfranchised generations,” Pope Francis said in a historic apology Monday for the Catholic Church’s collaboration with the Canadian government’s “catastrophic” program.

Pope Francis apologized to Indigenous community members and school survivors who gathered at a former residential school outside Edmonton, Alberta, saying, “I am profoundly sorry.” There has to be greater research and healing, he added, since this policy is a “disastrous mistake” that is irreconcilable with the Gospel.
In Francis’ words, “I humbly seek pardon for the atrocity inflicted by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples.”
When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada said that Canada’s assimilation policy amounted to “cultural genocide,” he went beyond his earlier apology for the “deplorable” abuse of missionaries and instead took institutional responsibility for the church’s cooperation with Canada’s disastrous assimilation policy.
As part of his seven-day “penitential pilgrimage,” Pope Francis visited four Cree communities, first praying at a cemetery and then making an apology in a nearby pow. With four chiefs leading him in a wheelchair to Ermineskin Indian Residential School, the pope was given a feathered headgear as an honorary leader of the community after he spoke at the site.
Between the late 1800s and the early 1970s, more than 150,000 indigenous children in Canada were compelled to attend government-funded Christian schools as a means of separating them from their families and cultures. Before, prior Canadian administrations saw Christianization and assimilation as preferable methods of socialization.
Students were beaten for speaking their original languages, the city of Ottawa has revealed. Physical and sexual abuse was commonplace at the schools. Indigenous leaders attribute the current pandemic of alcohol and drug misuse on Canadian reserves in part to this history of maltreatment and separation from family.
International attention has been drawn to the legacy of Canadian and American schools after hundreds of possible burial places at previous schools were discovered last year. Catholic religious organizations were responsible for 66 of Canada’s 139 residential schools, which led Francis to apologies on Canadian soil before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Francis’ comments were met with tears by some in the audience on Monday, while others cheered or remained quiet as he spoke in Spanish and then English.
Evelyn Korkmaz, a survivor of the Holocaust, stated, “I’ve waited 50 years for this apology and now today I heard it.” An emotional roller coaster has hit me, and I’m not sure where to begin. A “work plan” from the pope, she said, would have helped bring the two sides together, including the release of church records pertaining to children who perished at the schools.
Many people in the throng were dressed in traditional Native American garb, such as bright ribbon skirts and jackets. One woman’s grandmother had given her an orange blouse, which she cherished, and it was taken away from her and replaced with school uniforms at one of the schools she attended.
When Sandi Harper and her sister and a group of Saskatchewan-based church members arrived at a memorial service for their late mother who attended a residential school, they were met with a chorus of applause. “It’s something that is needed, not only for people to hear but for the church to be accountable,” she said.
When the pope apologized, Harper described it as “quite sincere.”
This reconciliation process is going to take some time, but he’s on board with us,” she added.
But despite this, there were periods when it looked as though everyone was having a good time: Chiefs marched into the theatre to the rhythm of a hypnotic drum while the audience sang battle songs, victories songs, and a healing song in unison.
No, I wasn’t let down.” Victim Phil Fontaine, the former head of the Assembly of First Nations and a former residential school abuse survivor, remarked in an interview that it was “quite a big event.”
Premier Justin Trudeau joined other government officials at the event after apologizing last year for the “very damaging government policy” of creating the residential school system.
Indigenous communities received billions of dollars as part of a settlement with the federal government, churches, and around 80,000 survivors. With more than $50 million in monetary and non-cash donations, the Catholic Church of Canada estimates that it will donate another $30 million in the next five years via dioceses and religious orders.
It was made obvious that Catholic missionaries were just assisting and carrying out the government’s agenda of integration, which Pope Francis called the “colonizing attitude of powers.” Interestingly, he made no mention of the papal decrees of the 15th century, which gave the first ecclesiastical support for European colonial powers.
Francis made it clear he was seeking forgiveness for the sins of “members of the church,” not the institution as a whole, according to Conrad Grebel University College professor Jeremy Bergen, an expert on church apologies.
According to an email from him, “the concept is that, being the Body of Christ, the church itself is blameless.”
When Catholics do horrible things, Bergen argues, they are not acting on behalf of the church as a whole. This is an argument that many Catholic theologians consider as problematic as it is unpopular.
It “indelibly impacted ties between parents and children, grandparents and grandkids” because of the policy’s marginalization of generations and suppression of Indigenous languages, Francis added. He referred to Indigenous requests for access to church archives and personnel files of the priests and nuns to find out who was guilty for the atrocities.
While Francis acknowledged the existence of many notable examples of Christian love and dedication to children, he concluded that the practices associated with the residential schools had “catastrophic” results in the long run. ‘This was a fatal mistake, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ,’ our Christian faith informs us.’
Even though he had to abandon a trip to Africa earlier this month due to an injured knee ligament, the first pope from the Americas was eager to make this trip.
In the spring, Pope Francis met with delegates from the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit at the Vatican. This six-day journey will also include visits in Quebec City and Iqaluit, Nunavut. Francis’ apologies for “deplorable” atrocities at residential schools and a commitment to never do so again on Canadian territory came out of those conversations on April 1.
On one of the trips, Francis was given beaded moccasin shoes as a symbol of the children who never returned from school, and requested to return them in Canada when he returned home. It “kept alive my emotion of sadness, wrath, and humiliation,” Francis said, but he hoped that by returning them, they may also indicate a route to travel together. Francis stated
A spokesperson for the event’s organizers said they would do all in their power to ensure that survivors could attend, including providing transportation and mental health counsellors for anyone who may need them.
Later on Monday, Francis was expected to pay a visit to Edmonton’s Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples, a Catholic parish that emphasizes Indigenous people and culture as its focus. Native American language and traditions are included in the church’s liturgy, which was reopened following a fire last week.

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