'A devastating mistake': Pope Francis on Monday issued a historic apology to the Native American peoples of Canada, asking for 'pardon for the wrong' done for decades in residential schools for Indians.
“I am distressed.
I ask forgiveness,” the pope said in Maskwacis, Alberta, in western Canada.
Referring to the “wounds still open”, he recognized the responsibility of certain members of the Church in this system where “the children suffered physical and verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse”.
The words of the sovereign pontiff had been awaited for years by these peoples - First Nations, Métis and Inuit - who today represent 5% of the Canadian population.
They were greeted with loud applause.
Read also Residential school drama: the Pope in Canada for a “penitential pilgrimage”
After praying at the Maskwacis cemetery, Pope Francis asked "forgiveness" three times, "with shame and clarity", during this first speech on the site of the former Ermineskin boarding school, in the presence of many survivors and members of indigenous communities, very moved.
"Assimilation policies have ended up systematically marginalizing indigenous peoples", he insisted, lamenting that "many Christians (have) supported the colonizing mentality of the powers" who "oppressed" them.
“Important for reconciliation”
The painful chapter of "residential schools" for Aboriginal children caused at least 6,000 deaths between the end of the 19th century and the 1990s and created trauma over several generations. The Canadian government, which paid billions of dollars in reparations to d ex-students, officially apologized 14 years ago for having created these schools set up to "kill the Indian in the heart of the child".
The Anglican Church then did the same.
But the Catholic Church, in charge of more than 60% of these boarding schools, has long refused to do so.
