In Iqaluit, Pope Francis’ final stop on his historic six-day tour of Canada, his address to Inuit youth and elders in an elementary school plaza alternated between expressing regret for the sins of the Catholic Church to offering encouraging advice to girls and boys seeking direction. His journey across Canada, from Alberta to Quebec to Nunavut, focused on confronting the traumatic legacy of residential schools and colonization. On Monday, near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis, Alta., the pontiff acknowledged that many Christians had oppressed indigenous people, including through cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the residential-school system. On Wednesday, in Quebec City, the Pope once again apologized. On Friday, he met with several survivors of the school in Iqaluit before an outdoor performance that included traditional throat singing and drumming. His speech before hundreds began with another apology for the “evil perpetuated” on the natives by church members. Speaking in his native Spanish, Francis’ speech was translated into English and Inuktitut. He told them he was sorry in Inuktitut, a meaningful gesture for many in the audience. “Thank you for having the courage to tell your stories and share your great suffering that I could not imagine,” he said in Spanish. “This only renewed in me the indignation and shame I had felt for months.” The pontiff’s tour has fostered healing for some school survivors and anger for others. The crisis line has doubled the number of calls for help since the Pope’s apology Pope Francis’ apology failed to recognize Church’s full role in residential schools, says Murray Sinclair In March, Francis met with First Nations, Métis and Inuit representatives at the Vatican, including survivors. After those meetings, he said he regretted the “deplorable behavior” of church members who abused children in residential schools and vowed to visit Canada. Many indigenous leaders and survivors hoped he would expand on his words during his visit to Canada and issue a formal apology. While he has repeatedly expressed deep regret and shame for the actions of many Catholic members and institutions, he has not apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in overseeing the schools, which were funded by governments. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called on the Pope to apologize to Canada for the church’s role in schools. Early Friday, before his flight to Ikaluit, Pope Francis held a private meeting with a delegation of indigenous people at the residence of the Archbishop of Quebec, Cardinal Gérald Lacroix. After the meeting, Ghislain Picard, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations for Quebec/Labrador, said it will be up to everyone to decide whether the Pope’s trip meets their expectations. “It’s really up to them to take action on all of this, whether it’s going to be that way of treating them,” Mr. Picard said after the meeting. “It will take time.” For Johnny Kolok, 60, the pope’s speeches all week haven’t gone far enough. As she awaited Francis’ final remarks in Iqaluit, she said the pope appeared to be letting the Catholic Church as a whole off the hook for the serial abuses it was responsible for at the residential schools. “It seems he doesn’t want to name the church itself in these crimes,” said Mr. Kolok, a local property manager for an Inuit company. “We have a lot of people who moved away from here. The nuns and priests who are still there and participated in these abuses must be held accountable.” Francis’ brief visit to Nunavut’s capital marks the first time a pope has traveled to the region. Organizers had dressed the event tent to resemble a qammaq – a type of traditional Inuit house often made using turf as a base, animal bones for structure and sealskin for covering. A reconstructed qammaq, a traditional Inuit house made with a turf base, animal bone structure and sealskin covering, sits atop a hill in Qaummaarviit Territorial Park on July 27. Kate Wilkinson/The Globe and Mail It was a house type Piita Irniq, a former Nunavut commissioner, lived seasonally with his family while growing up in Naujaat (formerly Repulse Bay). In 1958, at the age of 11, Mr. Irniq was taken from his parents by Catholic priests and taken to a residential school in Chesterfield Inlet, at the northwest end of Hudson Bay. “I had never been on a plane before I was taken away from my parents,” the 75-year-old, who now travels the world sharing his knowledge of Inuit culture, told The Globe and Mail earlier this week. Mr. Irniq expected the ceremony with the pope to be a “significant” occasion for the Inuit, a chance to highlight a culture that has withstood decades of attempts to dismantle it by various institutions in Canada, including the Catholic Church. Kate Wilkinson/The Globe and Mail At Sir Joseph Bernier Day School, he and the other students were forbidden to use Inuit dialects. He recalled a time when a nun painfully hit his open palm with a long ruler for speaking in Inuktitut with his peers. Mr. Irniq predicted the ceremony with the pope would be a “significant” occasion for the Inuit, an opportunity to highlight a culture that has withstood decades of attempts to dismantle it by various institutions in Canada, including the Catholic Church. “He will see our culture. He will listen to our language,” said Mr Irniq, who, in addition to taking part in the private audience with the Pope, also performed a drum dance for the crowd gathered outside Nakasuk Primary School. Mary Eetoolook, who is from Taloyaok, was in the private audience for residential-school survivors with Pope before the public event. In 1959, Ms. Eetoolook, along with her brother, were sent to the Sir Alexander Mackenzie Residential School in Inuvik when she was 8 years old. About the Pope coming to Ikaluit specifically, he said, “That’s why I didn’t come down south to Edmonton or anywhere else. I wanted to stand on the soil of Nunavut, my homeland, when he apologized. And I’m glad he came. “I’m here for my parents because my parents had no way to say no. Even if they said no, they would take us anyway. They would put us on a plane and take us away.” Another survivor in attendance was Paul Quassa, former premier of Nunavut. Mr. Kwasa was not allowed to look at or speak to his two sisters while he and his brothers attended Joseph Bernier School, except for the occasional break from that rule on some weekends. In an interview with The Globe earlier this week, he recalled the impact both Catholic and Anglican missionaries had on his hometown of Igloolik, located on a small island off the northeast coast of the Qikiqtaaluk region in northern Nunavut. “This was a community that was split in two. Igloolik was more like Northern Ireland in the 1960s, family against family, because of religion,” Mr Quasha said. “So they tried to destroy us, but they failed. They never succeeded.” Mr. Kwasa was the lead negotiator of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement that led to the creation of the territory in 1999. He said his experience at residential school in Chesterfield Inlet motivated him to fight for Inuit self-sufficiency and self-determination. “That’s why we got Nunavut,” he said. “To make sure our future generations never have to go through what we went through, when we weren’t allowed to speak our own language.” As the final leg of the Pope’s tour of Canada, the Iqaluit visit also raised the question of what comes next. While it was an emotional moment, Mr Kwasa welcomed the Pope’s apology to Maskwacis on Monday, which he watched on television from Iqaluit. However, “[Francis] emphasized that the Canadian Catholic bishops must follow up on some of these actions that need to be taken,” he noted. In his view, that means bringing retired Roman Catholic priest Johannes Rivoire to Canada. For years, survivors in northern Canada have alleged that Mr. Rivoire engaged in a pattern of sexual abuse at several Catholic-run schools over several decades. In March, Mr. Rivoire, now 93, was charged with sexual assault on a Canadian arrest warrant by the RCMP in Nunavut. On Wednesday, the federal justice minister confirmed that an extradition request had been sent to France, where Mr Rivoire currently lives. “We need justice,” Mr Kwasa said. “We know very well that many of these perpetrators have fled. Even if we see one or two, I think it will satisfy us, for those who live. Because no parent would ever want to see their children get into that situation. It’s criminal. It’s humiliating.” With a report by The Canadian Press The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
