The pope addressed his weekly general audience on his trip last week to Canada, where he delivered a historic apology for the church’s role in government-sanctioned schools that operated between 1870 and 1996. More than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and placed in residential schools. Catholic religious orders owned most of them under the assimilation policy of successive Canadian governments. Children were beaten for speaking their own language and many were sexually abused in a system Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.” The Pope met indigenous survivors throughout the trip, and on the last day, most of the elderly survivors from the school in Iqaluit told him their stories in a private meeting.
“Very painful moment”
“The last meeting with the Inuit, with the young and the old, how they felt the pain of not knowing where their children had gone [due to] these assimilation policies; it was a very painful moment to be there,” Pope Francis said, according to his translator. “We must face our mistakes and sins.” During the trip, the pope’s apologies drew strong emotions and praise as a first step toward reconciliation, but some survivors said they fell short of expectations and that he had not apologized clearly enough for the church as an institution. WATCHES | How the Pope’s visit to Canada unfolded in 11 minutes:
How the Pope’s visit to Canada unfolded in 11 minutes
In an apparent attempt to respond to critics, he said Wednesday that priests, nuns and lay Catholics had “participated in programs that today we understand are unacceptable and contrary to the Gospel. That’s why I went to ask for forgiveness in the name of the Church.” Some were also excited when the pope, speaking to reporters on the plane that took him to Rome on Saturday, called what happened in the schools a “genocide.” Francis, who suffers from a knee ailment, walked about 20 meters to his place on the stage of the Vatican audience hall using a cane and at the end stood to greet some participants. He later used a wheelchair as aides carried him through the crowd. He mostly used a wheelchair during the trip to Canada, including the in-flight press conference on the return flight.
