Years after a Canadian-government-funded commission issued findings detailing a history of physical and sexual abuse of Indigenous children in the country's Catholic-run residential schools, Pope Francis on Monday issued an apology on Canadian soil.
Pope Francis delivers remarks as he meets Indigenous communities — including First Nations, Metis and Inuit — at Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church in Maskwacis, near Edmonton, Canada, on Monday. Years after a Canadian-government-funded commission issued findings detailing a history of physical and sexual abuse of Indigenous children in the country's Catholic-run residential schools, Pope Francis on Monday issued an apology on Canadian soil.
The residential schools forcibly separated Indigenous children from their parents as part of an effort to convert them to Christianity and assimilate them into the wider Canadian culture. In total, 150,000 children from Canada's First Nations tribes were placed in 139 schools run under government contract — most by the Catholic Church — over a 150-year period.
Earlier this year, Francis expressed"shame and sorrow" for the Catholic Church's role in abuses and for"the lack of respect" shown to Indigenous cultures and their values. "When you sing the song [it should be] coming from your heart," says St. Pierre, who was present in Maskwacis when Francis spoke. Francis' statement was"read off a script," he says.
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