O Pope Francis told the indigenous leaders, on your last day of visit to Canada who was hurt that Catholics had supported “oppressive and unjust policies” against them.
The 85-year-old pontiff met on Friday with an indigenous delegation at the archbishop of Quebec’s residence before departing for a brief stop in the arctic territory of Nunavut, created in 1999 to house the Inuit people.
“I came as a brother to discover firsthand the good and bad fruits borne by members of the local Catholic family over the years,” Francis began.
“I have come in a spirit of penance to express my deep sorrow for the harm inflicted on you by the many Catholics who supported oppressive and unjust policies against these people.”
He was referring to the residential schools where more than 150,000 indigenous children were taken after being separated from their families between 1870 and 1996.
Religious groups, mostly Catholics, managed the institutions so that the governments of the time implemented a policy of “cultural assimilation”.
Minors were starved or beaten for speaking their native languages and many were sexually abused in a system that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called a “cultural genocide”.
“I came as a pilgrim, despite my physical limitations, to take more steps forward with you and for you,” he said.
“I do this so that the search for the truth can be advanced, so that the healing and reconciliation processes continue and so that the seeds of hope continue to be sown for future generations – indigenous and non-indigenous – who want to live together, in harmony, as brothers and sisters”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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