Pope Francis received in audience a group of about 20 indigenous people from the First Nations of Canada, accompanied by some Canadian bishops this morning, accompanied by some Canadian bishops this morning, March 31, 2022, to 10:30.
“The meeting, in a climate of listening and closeness, follows that of last Monday with the Métis and Inuit “, said Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, in a statement. “Tomorrow, the Holy Father will meet again in audience with the three groups, to address his speech,” Bruni concludes.
These audiences, initiated by a time of prayer according to traditional customs, are an occasion for traumatized indigenous populations to share their painful experiences with Francis. It is a visit framed within the process called Indigenous Healing & Reconciliation , undertaken by the Canadian Episcopal Conference and the Canadian Catholic Indigenous Council (CICC), which tries to heal the dramatic issue of residential schools in which children were abused and abused and even killed.
Apologize
According to Vatican News in French, the different delegations from Canada, in addition to sharing their suffering, have the common desire to ask the Pontiff to apologize for the role of the Catholic Church in the management of boarding schools promoted by the Government of Canada to late nineteenth century and entrusted to the Christian Churches of the country.
Between 1831 and 1996, 150,000 Aboriginal children were forcibly recruited into these Catholic-run re-education centers across the country, where they were subjected to the government’s program of forced assimilation, abuse, and mistreatment. Likewise, between 3,000 and 6,000 children died within the walls of these boarding schools.
The meeting with Pope Francis “is an important step in continuing to determine the guilt of the Catholic Church in the genocide, and its complicity in what many First Nations children experienced in these institutions. The Church was responsible for its administration and, in many cases, for the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of our children”, said the regional head of the Assembly of First Nations (APN) Gerald Antoine, who heads the NPC delegation in Rome in a statement.
Pope’s trip to Canada
According to the same source, last Monday, after their audiences with the Holy Father, the Inuit and Métis delegations expressed their conditions for the long-awaited apology: The Pope must do it in Canada, with the victims and their families.
In this sense, on October 27, 2021, His Holiness already expressed his willingness to visit Canada “on a date that will be set in due time”, according to the Vatican Press Office.
In this way, the Holy Father accepted the invitation of the Canadian Episcopal Conference “to make an apostolic trip to Canada, also in the context of the long pastoral process of reconciliation with indigenous peoples.”
