Pope Francis said on Sunday that his trip to Canada next week will be a “journey of penance” that he hopes will help remedy wrongdoing by Roman Catholic priests and nuns against indigenous people who ran boarding schools.
The visit, scheduled for July 24-30, will include at least five meetings with indigenous peoples, during which the pope will deliver on his promise to apologize in his homeland for the church’s role in schools that seek to erase indigenous cultures. are, it will work.
In his weekly address in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said: “Unfortunately in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutions, have contributed to policies of cultural hegemony that in the past have harmed indigenous peoples in many ways.”
Canada’s internal education system forcibly separated an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children from their parents, many of whom were abused, sexually assaulted and malnourished, in what Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission described as “cultural genocide” in 2015.
The stated purpose of the schools, which operated between 1831 and 1996, was the integration of indigenous children. It was run by several Christian denominations on behalf of the state, most of which were run by the Catholic Church.
These schools were discussed in the Vatican between the Pope and the natives in March and April. Referring to the visits, the Pope said on Sunday that he expressed his “pain and solidarity with the evil they have suffered”.
He added: I am on a journey to atone for my sins and I hope that by the grace of God you will participate in the path of healing and reconciliation that has already begun.
The scandal resurfaced last year when the remains of 215 children were discovered at a former Indian boarding school in Kamloops, Western British Columbia, which closed in 1978.
This discovery has created new demands for accountability. Since then, hundreds of unknown or undistinguished burial sites have been found.
Pope Francis was elected almost two decades after the last schools were closed.
Source: Lebanon Debate
