MASKWACIS — Pope Francis says he is sorry for the Roman Catholic Church's role in the cultural destruction and forced assimilation of Indigenous people, which culminated in residential schools.
Day 2 of Pope visit to include stops at a former residential school, Edmonton church
Tears streamed down the faces of elders and survivors as Francis apologized Monday in Maskwacis, Alta., south of Edmonton, after visiting the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School.
"In the face of this deplorable evil, the church kneels before God and implores his forgiveness for the sins of her children … I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples," Francis said through a translator at the community's powwow grounds.
He received applause from many in the crowd of thousands as he said he felt sorrow, indignation and shame. Others sat in contemplation with their eyes closed when the pontiff said the actions of the church were a "disastrous error incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Francis asked for forgiveness, in particular, for "the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities co-operated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools."
Francis spoke in Spanish, his first language, and it was translated into English by a priest. Translations were also available in several Indigenous languages.
He said begging forgiveness is the first step and there must be a serious investigation into what took place. Francis also called the overall effects of the policies linked to residential schools "catastrophic."
Following his apology, Francis gave Marie-Anne Day Walker-Pelletier, a retired chief of Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, a pair of moccasins.
She had given the children's moccasins to the Pope when an Indigenous delegation visited Rome earlier this year. They were meant to represent children who never came home from residential schools and she had told the pontiff she expected him to return them when he came to apologize on Canadian soil.
An estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools in Canada, where neglect and physical and sexual abuse were rampant. More than 60 per cent of the schools were run by the Catholic Church.
Related video: Pope Francis arrives in Edmonton to start 6-day Canadian visit, apologize for Indigenous residential schools View on Watch
Eileen Clearsky from Waywayseecappo First Nation in Manitoba held photos of her mother and father during the apology. She said she wanted to honour her parents, who were both survivors, and to find healing for her family.
"It’s been a long journey to find out who we are because of the legacy that residential school has left behind for us to deal with," Clearsky said.
Chief Wilton Littlechild presented Francis with a headdress. The former member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission attended residential schools for 14 years as a child in Alberta.
Littlechild said he hopes the Pope's visit furthers a pathway of justice, healing, reconciliation and hope.
"We sincerely hope that our encounter this morning and the words you share with us will echo the true healing and real hope for generations to come," he said.
Earlier in the day, Francis held his own face as he was brought in a wheelchair to a graveyard in Maskwacis. Organizers said there are likely remains of residential school students among the graves.
The Ermineskin school was one of the largest residential schools in the country. Five teepees were set up at the location for the Pope's visit — four representing the nations of the land and the fifth as symbol of the entrance to the former school.
Organizers said sacred fires were also burning in communities throughout the country in solidarity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, as well as other political and Indigenous leaders, were at the event.
Francis was set to speak later Monday with Indigenous Peoples and parish members at the Church of Sacred Heart in Edmonton.
Later in the week, the Pope is scheduled to host a large outdoor mass at the city's football stadium and take part in a pilgrimage in nearby Lac Ste. Anne, before travelling to Quebec City and Iqaluit.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2022.
— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in Winnipeg
Brittany Hobson and Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press
Pope apologises for 'catastrophic' indigenous school policy in Canada
Pope Francis has issued a historic apology for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families and marginalised generations.
“I am deeply sorry,” Francis said to applause from school survivors and Indigenous community members gathered at a former residential school south of Edmonton in Alberta. He called the school policy a “disastrous error” that was incompatible with the Gospel and said further investigation and healing is needed.
In the first event of his weeklong “penitential pilgrimage,” Francis travelled to the lands of four Cree nations to pray at a cemetery and then deliver the long-sought apology at nearby powow ceremonial grounds. Four chiefs escorted the pontiff in a wheelchair to the site near the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, and presented him with a feathered headdress after he spoke, making him an honorary leader of the community.
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said.
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His words went beyond his earlier apology for the “deplorable” abuse of missionaries and instead took institutional responsibility for the church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” assimilation policy, which the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said amounted to a “cultural genocide”.
More than 150,000 native children in Canada were forced to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture. The aim was to Christianise and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.
Ottawa has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages. That legacy of that abuse and isolation from family has been cited by Indigenous leaders as a root cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction now on Canadian reservations.
The discoveries of hundreds of potential burial sites at former schools in the past year drew international attention to the legacy of the schools in Canada and their counterparts in the United States. The revelations prompted Francis to comply with the truth commission’s call for him to apologise on Canadian soil for Catholics' role in the abuses; Catholic religious orders operated 66 of the 139 country's residential schools.
Some in the crowd Monday wept as Francis spoke, while others applauded or stayed silent listening to his words, which were delivered in Spanish and then translated into English.
“I’ve waited 50 years for this apology and finally today I heard it," said survivor Evelyn Korkmaz. “Part of me is rejoiced, part of me is sad, part of me is numb.” She added, however, that she had hoped to hear a “work plan” from the pope on what he would do next to reconcile, including release of church files about the fate of children who died at the schools.
Many in the crowd wore traditional dress, including colourful ribbon skirts and vests with Native motifs. Others donned orange shirts, which have become a symbol of residential school survivors, recalling the story of one woman whose beloved orange shirt, a gift from her grandmother, was confiscated at a school and replaced with a uniform.
“It’s something that is needed, not only for people to hear but for the church to be accountable,” said Sandi Harper, who travelled with her sister and a church group from Saskatchewan in honour of their late mother, who attended a residential school.
Harper called the pope’s apology “very genuine”.
“He recognises this road to reconciliation is going to take time, but he is really on board with us,” she said.
Despite the solemnity of the event, the atmosphere seemed at times joyful: Chiefs processed into the site venue to a hypnotic drumbeat, elders danced and the crowd cheered and chanted war songs, victory songs and finally a healing song.
“I wasn’t disappointed. It was quite a momentous occasion,” Phil Fontaine, a residential school abuse survivor and the former chief of the Assembly of First Nations who went public with his story of sexual abuse in the 1990s, said in interview with The Associated Press.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who last year apologised for the “incredibly harmful government policy” in organising the residential school system, also attended along with other officials.
As part of a lawsuit settlement involving the government, churches and approximately 90,000 survivors, Canada paid reparations that amounted to billions of dollars being transferred to Indigenous communities. Canada’s Catholic Church says its dioceses and religious orders have provided more than US$50 million (NZ$79 million) in cash and in-kind contributions and hope to add US$30 million more over the next five years.
While the pope acknowledged blame, he also made clear that Catholic missionaries were merely cooperating with and implementing the government policy of assimilation, which he termed the “colonising mentality of the powers”. Notably he didn't refer to the 15th century papal decrees that provided the religious backing to European colonial powers in the first place.
Jeremy Bergen, a church apology expert and professor of religious and theological studies at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, said Francis made clear he was asking forgiveness for the actions of “members of the church” but not the institution in its entirety.
“The idea is that, as the Body of the Christ, the church itself is sinless," he said in an email.
"So when Catholics do bad things, they are not truly acting on behalf of the church,” said Bergen, noting it’s a controversial idea on which many Catholic theologians disagree.
Francis said the policy marginalised generations, suppressed Indigenous languages, led to physical, verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse and “indelibly affected relationships between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren”. He called for further investigation, a possible reference to Indigenous demands for further access to church records and personnel files of the priests and nuns to identify who was responsible for the abuses.
“Although Christian charity was not absent, and there were many outstanding instances of devotion and care for children, the overall effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic,” Francis said. “ What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ”.
The first pope from the Americas was determined to make this trip, even though torn knee ligaments forced him to cancel a visit to Africa earlier this month.
The six-day visit – which will also include stops in Quebec City and Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the far north – follows meetings Francis held in the spring at the Vatican with delegations from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit. Those meetings culminated with Francis' apology April 1 for “deplorable” abuses at residential schools and a promise to do so again on Canadian soil.
Francis recalled that one of the delegations gave him a set of beaded moccasins as a symbol of children who never came back from the schools, and asked him to return them in Canada. Francis said in these months they “kept alive my sense of sorrow, indignation and shame” but that in returning them he hoped they can also represent a path to walk together.
Event organisers said they would do everything possible to ensure survivors could attend, busing them in and providing mental health counsellors knowing that the event could be traumatic for some.
AP
‘Overwhelming’: Survivors
reflect on pope’s Indigenous
abuse apology
By AFP
Published July 25, 2022
Pope Francis visits the Ermineskin Cree Nation Cemetery in Maskwacis, Canada on July 25, 2022 -
Some seemed far away, others wept or applauded: a great wave of emotion swept through the crowd on Monday in western Canada’s Maskwacis when the pope himself begged forgiveness for the “evil” done to Indigenous people.
One way or another, they had all been affected by the decades of abuse against children in schools run by the Catholic Church, part of a system seeking to stamp out the Indigenous identity of tens of thousands of people.
Most of them had been hoping for this for a long time. “I waited 50 years for this apology,” said one former student, Evelyn Korkmaz. “And finally today I heard it.”
“I am sorry,” the 85-year-old pontiff told the crowd, many wearing traditional clothing. “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples.”
He evoked the “physical, verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse” of children over the course of decades.
Shortly after his speech, one of the chiefs gave him a traditional headdress — then suddenly a woman stood up to sing the Canadian anthem alone in Cree. A tear rolled down her weathered face.
“Words cannot describe how important today is for the healing journey,” said Vernon Saddleback, one of the chiefs of the Maskwacis reservation, where the pope made his first stop on a tour of Canada dedicated to its First Nations, Metis and Inuit people.
Shortly before, a long red banner had woven through the crowd as they waited for the pope’s arrival.
On the scarlet fabric: 4,120 children’s names written in white.
These are just some of the thousands of children who died after they were forced to attend the schools, and who were often buried nearby in unmarked graves and without their parents having been informed.
Many died of diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, or by accident, but also because of abuse and neglect, and poor sanitary conditions.
The system is believed to have caused at least 6,000 deaths between the end of the 19th century and the 1990s and traumatized several generations.
Irene Liening Muskowekwan, who spent eight years in a residential school and who came to Maskwacis with her children from the neighboring province of British Columbia, hoped that survivors and their families can “find peace and healing.”
She gave vivid illustration of the intergenerational trauma that such abuse can inflict.
Beginning a story about her aunt, who died aged five or six in one of the schools, she stopped, admitting it was too painful.
But later she returned to the topic, describing how her aunt was killed after being thrown down the stairs by a nun. Her name was on the red banner, she said.
Her own children, whom she brought to the ceremony, had also suffered “because of what I put them through, you know, coming out of a residential school feeling so… like I’m not even a person.”
As a small child in the school, she admitted, she had not even known her own name. “I was known as number 751.”
In the end, many confessed to feeling disoriented by the day’s emotions.
Korkmaz spent four years in a residential school.
The day had been “overwhelming,” she said. “It’s been a very emotional day for me as a survivor. I had my ups and downs.”
She added that she was “glad I lived long enough to have witnessed his apology.”
Many of her relatives, friends, classmates and members of her community did not — they had died by suicide or addiction, fallouts from the abuse, she said.
Now she wants the Church to provide access to the school records — documents which could finally present an official account of what happened to those children whose fates remain unknown.
“They belong here in Canada. They belong to us. This is our history. They don’t belong in Rome. They belong here,” she said.
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