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Pope Francis in Canada: "Nothing can erase the pain suffered"

2022-07-26T05:25:06.870Z


On his trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked the country's indigenous people for forgiveness for their suffering in Catholic boarding schools. There was applause for a symbolic gesture.


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Pope in Canada: Francis visited a cemetery with First Nations, Inuit and Métis representatives to pray in silence at graves

Photo Credit: IMAGO/Ciro Fusco/ IMAGO/ZUMA Wire

Pope Francis has called for a common path of reconciliation in the church after asking for forgiveness for the crimes committed by Catholic servants against the indigenous people of Canada.

"Nothing can erase the wounded dignity, the pain suffered and the trust betrayed," said the Catholic Church leader on Monday afternoon (local time) at Sacred Heart Church in Edmonton.

But it is necessary to start again to seek reconciliation in the Church.

In his speech to representatives of the indigenous people and the Catholic Church, Francis denounced the suffering that indigenous people had endured in the church-run boarding schools.

"It hurts me to think that Catholics have contributed to policies of assimilation and disenfranchisement." The children were stripped of their cultural and spiritual identities in the name of a cultural education thought to be Christian, he said the 85-year-old Argentine.

The Catholic church in Edmonton is symbolic of the Pope's demand.

It has been an Aboriginal parish since 1991, making it the first church of its kind in Canada to merge Indigenous and Christian cultures.

With an apparently short-term change of plan after the church visit, Francis caused a stir for a short time.

He was wheeled out of the church in his wheelchair but appeared to be ready to greet worshipers and visitors who were standing behind a fenced perimeter.

Pursued by a crowd of journalists, he was pushed towards the cheering crowd.

Meanwhile, the security forces tried to keep the situation under control.

The main reason for the trip, which lasts several days, is to meet the indigenous people of Canada and to ask them for forgiveness for violence and abuse at Catholic boarding schools.

The pope with a feather headdress next to chiefs of the large indigenous tribes: It was the symbolic gesture that caused applause during the visit of the Catholic leader on Monday morning (local time) in Maskwacis, south of the western Canadian city of Edmonton.

There he spoke clearly of the crimes committed by staff in boarding schools run by the Catholic Church against indigenous children for decades.

Prior to this, he visited a cemetery with First Nations, Inuit and Métis representatives to pray in silence at graves.

"I beg your forgiveness," said the pope in the small town of a few thousand inhabitants where one of the boarding schools once stood.

In particular, he apologized for the way in which many members of the Church and religious communities have participated in the "projects of cultural destruction".

This was found “in the system of boarding schools”.

Maskwacis was home to hundreds of survivors who once attended boarding schools.

Some cried, others applauded the Pope's words.

A woman from the crowd shouted something at him, clearly upset, and walked away.

"It's overwhelming"

Lizzie and Yvette Daniels, two boarding school survivors, say they drove all night to see the Pope at Maskwacis.

"It's amazing," said Lizzie Daniels.

For them, the most important thing is to hear the Pope's apology.

According to her own words, her sister Linda Daniels met Francis in March at the Vatican.

When she shook his hand at the time, she said, she thought: "Feel our pain."

After the Pope left Maskwacis, chiefs spoke at a press conference about the meeting with the pontiff.

Some said it was only a first step in the Church's restoration.

Another explained that it was not possible to get over the experiences in the boarding schools.

For decades, starting in the 1880s, an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were snatched from their families and placed in church-run boarding schools.

In schools, many children experienced violence, sexual abuse, hunger and disease.

Hundreds never came home.

The last church-run boarding schools closed in 1996. The program, initiated by the state and supported by the church, was intended to adapt the children to Western Christian society.

The discovery of hundreds of anonymous children's graves near the boarding schools since May last year has made their fate known worldwide - although it has been discussed in Canada for years.

In 2015, a state commission described the crimes committed by school staff as “cultural genocide”.

Victims are still demanding compensation from the church and access to the church archives, where documents related to the boarding schools are kept.

wit/dpa

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-07-26

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