Pope Francis said Wednesday he felt the pain of survivors of Canada’s residential school system and asked for “an apology in the name of the church” for the role many of its members played in abusing children and trying to erase indigenous cultures.
The pope addressed his weekly general audience on his trip to Canada last week, where he offered a historic apology for the church’s role in the government-sanctioned schools that operated between 1870 and 1996.
More than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and brought to residential schools. Catholic religious orders led most of them under the assimilation policy of successive Canadian governments.
Children were beaten for speaking their own languages, and many were sexually abused in a system the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”
The pope met with local survivors during the trip, and on the final day, mostly adult survivors of a school in Iqaluit told him their stories in a private meeting.
“A very painful moment”
“The last meeting with the Inuit, with the young and old people, how they felt the pain, not knowing where their children were taken [due to] these assimilation policies; it was a very painful moment to be there,” Pope Francis said, according to his translator. “We have to come face to face with our mistakes and sins.”
During the trip, the pope’s apology drew strong emotions and praise as a first step toward reconciliation, but some survivors said it fell short of expectations and that he did not apologize clearly enough for the church as an institution.
WATCH | 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 we understand today to be unacceptable and contrary to the Gospel. That’s why I went to ask for forgiveness in the name of a church.”
Some were also encouraged when the pope, speaking to reporters on the plane returning him to Rome on Saturday, called what happened in the schools a “genocide.”
Francis, who suffers from a knee ailment, walked with a cane about 20 meters to his seat on the stage of the Vatican’s audience hall and finally stood up to greet some participants. He later used a wheelchair as aides moved him through the crowd.
He mostly used a wheelchair during the trip to Canada, including during his press conference on the return flight.
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