VATICAN CITY (AP) — Indigenous leaders from Canada and survivors of the country’s notorious boarding schools met with Pope Francis on Monday and told him about the abuse they suffered at the hands of Catholic priests and school workers. They came hoping to receive a papal apology and a pledge from the church to repair the damage done.
“Though the time for recognition, apology and atonement is long overdue, it is never too late to do the right thing,” Metis National Council President Cassidy Caron said after the audience with reporters in St. Peter’s Square.
This week’s meetings, postponed because of December’s pandemic, are part of Canada’s church and government’s efforts to respond to Indigenous people’s calls for justice, reconciliation and reparation – long-standing demands that have increased over the past year after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves gained prominence outside of some schools.
More than 150,000 native children in Canada were forced to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century through the 1970s in order to isolate them from the influence of their home and culture and to Christianize them and into the mainstream society that used to be Canadians who integrate governments are considered superior.
Francis has taken several hours this week to meet privately with Metis and Inuit delegations on Monday and First Nations on Thursday, with a mental health adviser in the room for each session. Delegates then gather as a group for a more formal audience on Friday, with Francis delivering an address.
Monday’s encounters included prayers in the Metis and Inuit languages and other gestures of deep symbolic meaning. The Inuit delegation brought a traditional oil lamp, or qulliq, which is lit when the Inuit gather and which remains lit throughout the meeting in the Pope’s library. The Inuit delegates presented Francis with a sealskin stole and a sealskin rosary box.
The Metis offered Francis a pair of red-beaded moccasins, “a sign of the Metis people’s willingness to forgive when there is meaningful action by the church,” the group explained. The red dye “shows that Pope Francis, while not wearing the traditional red papal shoes, walks with the legacy of those who came before him, the good, the great, and the terrible.”
In a statement, the Vatican said each meeting lasted about an hour “and was marked by the Pope’s desire to listen and make space for the painful stories brought by the survivors.”
The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in schools, with students being beaten for speaking their mother tongue. This legacy of this abuse and isolation from family has been cited by Indigenous leaders as a major cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction on Canadian reservations.
Almost three quarters of the 130 dormitories were run by Catholic missionary communities.
Last May, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation announced the discovery of 215 burial sites near Kamloops, British Columbia, found using ground-penetrating radar. It was Canada’s largest Indigenous boarding school, and the discovery of the tombs was the first of many similarly grim sites across the country.
Caron said Francis listened carefully Monday as three of the many Metis survivors shared their personal stories of abuse at boarding schools with him. The Pope expressed sorrow but did not offer an immediate apology. In English he repeated the words Caron had emphasized in her remarks: truth, justice and healing.
“I take it as a personal commitment,” said Caron, surrounded by Metis fiddlers who escorted her onto the pitch.
She said what must follow is an apology recognizing the harm done, the return of Indigenous artifacts, a commitment to facilitate the prosecution of abusive priests, and access to boarding school church records.
Canadian Bishop Raymond Poisson, chair of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, insisted the Vatican does not keep such records, saying they are more likely to be kept by individual religious orders in Canada or at their headquarters in Rome.
Even before the burial sites were discovered, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission specifically requested a papal apology on Canadian soil for the church’s role in the abuses. Francis has pledged to travel to Canada, although no date has been announced for such a visit.
“First and foremost, reconciliation requires action. And we still need very concrete action from the Catholic Church,” said Natan Obed, President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, who led the Inuit delegation.
He cited the reparations the Canadian Church was ordered to pay, access to records to understand the extent of the unmarked graves, and Francis’ own help in seeking justice for the victims of a Catholic Oblate priest, the accused Rev. John Rivoire, find of multiple sexual abuse cases currently living in France.
“We Inuit have often felt powerless over time to sometimes right the wrongs done to us,” Obed said. “We are incredibly resilient and great forgiving … but we are still searching for enduring respect and the right to self-determination and recognition of that right by the institutions that have harmed us.”
As part of a settlement of a lawsuit involving the government, churches and some 90,000 surviving students, Canada paid billions in reparations that were wired to indigenous communities.
For its part, the Catholic Church has paid over $50 million and now intends to add another $30 million over the next five years.
The Metis delegation made it clear to Francis that the church-run boarding school system and the forced removal of children from their homes made it easier for Canadian authorities to take over Indigenous lands while at the same time teaching Metis children “that they should not love , who they’re like Metis people,” Caron said.
“Our kids came home hating who they were, hating their language, hating their culture, hating their traditions,” Caron said. “They had no love. But our survivors are so resilient. You learn to love.”
The Argentine pope is no stranger to apologizing for his own mistakes and what he describes as “crimes” by the institutional church.
During a visit to Bolivia in 2015, he apologized for the sins, crimes and misdemeanors committed by the Church against indigenous peoples during the colonial-era conquest of America. In Dublin, Ireland, in 2018, he offered a full apology to those who have been sexually and physically abused for generations.
That same year, he met privately with three Chilean sexual abuse survivors whom he had discredited by supporting a bishop they accused of covering up their abuse. In a series of meetings modeled on those now held for the Canadian delegates, Francis listened and apologized.