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Pope Francis: "Projects of Cultural Destruction"
Photo Credit: IMAGO/Vatican Media Press Office Hando/ IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
During his visit to Canada, Pope Francis apologized to the country's indigenous people for the injustice inflicted on them by church officials.
During a visit to Maskwacis, a small town near the western Canadian city of Edmonton in the province of Alberta, the pope said he was asking for forgiveness for "the evil that so many Christians have done to indigenous people".
The Catholic Church leader regretted the involvement of the Church in the "cultural destruction" of the indigenous societies.
He expressed dismay at "the manner in which many members of the Church and religious communities have engaged, not least through indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation."
He feels pain and regret, said the 85-year-old.
150,000 children torn from their families
In Maskwacis, around 100 km south of Edmonton, the Pope met with representatives of the indigenous population who had been preparing for the visit of the Catholic Church leader for a long time.
Representatives of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis were present.
From 1895 to 1975 Ermineskin boarding school, one of the largest boarding schools in the country, was located in Maskwacis.
In Canada, since 1874, some 150,000 Aboriginal children had been taken from their families and placed in church-run boarding schools in order to force them to assimilate into mainstream white society.
Many of them were mistreated or sexually abused there, and thousands died of disease or malnutrition.
The cases received international attention when experts discovered anonymous graves of dead children near a boarding school just over a year ago.
Indigenous people visited Pope
Before leaving for Canada, Pope Francis had announced that he would come as a penitent.
On the flight to Edmonton, he said one had to be "careful" on this trip.
On the way from the airport, there were a few people on the side of the road waiting for the pope to drive by.
A banner also hung on one bridge that read "No to apology."
Representatives of the indigenous groups had visited Pope Francis at the end of March in the Vatican, where the pontiff had already apologized for the actions of the church.
ptz/AFP/dpa