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At the beginning of his trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked the indigenous people of the country in his native language for forgiveness for the crimes against indigenous people once committed by church officials.
Pope Francis
"It is with shame and unequivocally that I humbly ask forgiveness for the evil that so many Christians have done to indigenous peoples."
The 85-year-old church leader regretted the church's complicity in citing the "cultural destruction and forced assimilation" of the indigenous people.
In particular, he referred to the horrific incidents in Canadian boarding schools, where an estimated 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families in the 19th and 20th centuries.
They lived in Church-run facilities.
Many children were mistreated or sexually abused there, thousands died.
Evelyn Korkmaz,, survivor
“I've waited 50 years for this apology. I finally heard them today. Unfortunately, many of my family, friends, classmates, and members of my community who attended the boarding school were no longer able to hear that apology because they passed away through suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, or whatever, because of the trauma they experienced in these boarding schools had endured, could not endure, or survive.«
Tony Alexis, Chief of the Alexis Nakota Sinoux Nation
"When the apology was made, you could see it: viewers were triggered. We noticed it when we were there: An old wound was reopened. And we cannot just leave this wound as it is. We must do something to heal our people."
Louis Bull, Chief Bull Tribe
'Please stop telling us to get over this. We can't because the last boarding schools only closed in the mid-1990s. We can't as survivors are still among us. We cannot as this intergenerational trauma impacts everyone who has family members who survived boarding school.«
The Pope continues his visit to Canada on Tuesday.
