After the long-anticipated apology from the Pope in Maskwacis Alta., Monday, Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations Wilton Littlechild presented the Holy Father with a headdress.
© Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
But not everyone is applauding Littlechild's gesture.
After Pope Francis's apology, Littlechild — a former commissioner of the TRC — placed the headdress on the Pontiff's head, over his papal zucchetto.
The pope donned the regalia briefly before having it removed by his staff.
Samson Cree elder John Crier supports Littlechild's decision to gift the headdress to the Pope.
"The giving of the headdress is honouring a man as the honourary chief and leader in a community. So, in doing that it actually adopted him as one of our leaders in the community," said Crier.
"It's an honouring of the work that he has done and it also is recognizing from the community that here's a man that belongs to our tribe."
Related video: Pope 'deeply sorry' for 'colonizing mentality' of many Christians
View on Watch
The headdress donned by the Pope, the war bonnet, is held in high regard.
In 1987, when John Paul II visited Canada he met with Indigenous leaders and urged the church's solidarity with Indigenous peoples in Canada. Yet, Pope Francis is the first Pontiff to receive a war bonnet on a visit to Canada.
Riley Yesno is a Anishinaabe writer and Indigenous rights activist based in Toronto. She says allowing the Pope to be held in such high regard is frustrating.
"The church is here because it didn't act very honourably and the church continues not to act very honourably."
Yesno says she believes Indigenous people have been gracious to the Pope but, neither the Pope nor the Catholic church has returned the gesture.
"We're gifting things to the Pope and the Pope is not returning these [gestures] on the list of things that are actually meant to happen."
Niigaan Sinclair, professor of Indigenous Studies at University of Manitoba, says allowing prominent people to take part in significant Indigenous traditions can devalue their meaning.
"To give our most sacred items to those who, perhaps demonstrate goodwill, but don't deliver on the promises is just very upsetting, and it's also very degrading to our own ceremonial items."
Sinclair says although many viewed the papal visit and the gifted headdress as a turning point, there is still pain in the community.
"It is, at times, a very complicated day. It's not a day to celebrate. It's a day to realize that the traumas are still ongoing in our community and to sit to feel that pain."
Apology fails to recognize 'full role of the church in the residential school system,' former senator says
Rachel Bergen · CBC News · Posted: Jul 26, 2022
The former Manitoba senator who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada says there's a "deep hole" in the apology issued by Pope Francis Monday for the role Catholics played in Canada's residential school system.
Murray Sinclair says the historic apology, although meaningful to many residential school survivors and their families, fell short of Call to Action 58 in the final report.
It specifically called on the Pope to issue an apology "for the Roman Catholic Church's role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools."
In a written statement Tuesday, Sinclair said the intent was that survivors would not only hear remorse, "but an acceptance of responsibility for what they were put through at the hands of the church and other institutions."
While he called it a "historic apology," he said the Pope's statement "has left a deep hole in the acknowledgement of the full role of the church in the residential school system, by placing blame on individual members of the church."
Pope Francis delivered the apology Monday in Alberta at the site of the former Ermineskin residential school, one of the largest in Canada, as he started what he called his "penitential pilgrimage."
"I ask 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," he said.
Sinclair said it's important to highlight that the Catholic Church was not just an agent of the state, but "a lead co-author of the darkest chapters in the history of the land."
Pope's residential school apology prompts mixed emotions from Manitoba survivors'We won't forget': Manitoba residential school survivors respond to Pope Francis' apology
Sinclair says Catholic leaders who were driven by the Doctrine of Discovery — a 15th-century papal edict that justified colonial expansion by allowing Europeans to claim Indigenous lands as their own — as well as other church beliefs and policies enabled the government of Canada, and pushed it further in its work to commit what the TRC called the cultural genocide carried out on Indigenous people in Canada.
That was often "not just a collaboration, but an instigation," he said.
"There are clear examples in our history where the church called for the government of Canada to be more aggressive and bold in its work to destroy Indigenous culture, traditional practices and beliefs," Sinclair's statement said.
"It was more than the work of a few bad actors — this was a concerted institutional effort to remove children from their families and cultures, all in the name of Christian supremacy."
Time for action
Sinclair says reconciliation requires action, and the Catholic Church must work to assist in restoring culture, beliefs and traditions destroyed through assimilation.
"For the children and descendants of survivors, it is not enough that you have stopped abusing them," he said. Rather, the church must help them recover, and "as well as commit to never doing this again."
The Pope will continue his pilgrimage throughout the week to meet with First Nations, Métis and Inuit survivors in Quebec and Nunavut. Sinclair hopes the pontiff will take his words to heart.
"There is a better path that the church — and all Canadians — can indeed follow: taking responsibility for past actions and resolving to do better on this journey of reconciliation."
Pope Francis apologizes for forced assimilation of Indigenous children at residential schools'I am deeply sorry': Full text of residential school apology from Pope Francis
Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports.
A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.
Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Bergen is a journalist for CBC Manitoba and previously reported for CBC Saskatoon. Email story ideas to rachel.bergen@cbc.ca
CANADA: What Pope Francis left out of residential school apology
OTAWA — Pope Francis delivered a historic apology on Monday to survivors of Canada's residential schools. The majority of those government-funded institutions, in which thousands of Indigenous children suffered abuse and neglect, were run by the Catholic Church.
In the lead-up to the Pope's visit, Indigenous leaders made specific calls about what they wanted to see in the apology and where they hoped it would lead to next.
Here's what was missing:
A revocation of the Doctrine of Discovery
The Assembly of First Nations has been among the loudest bodies calling for the renouncement of the 14th-century policy.
It was a decree from the Vatican that countries including Canada used to justify the colonization of Indigenous lands.
The AFN says the doctrine ignores Indigenous sovereignty and continues to have legal impacts today.
After Pope Francis's apology, delivered before an audience of survivors and others in Maskwacis, Alta., the pontiff faced a shout from the crowd to renounce the doctrine.
An apology on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church as an institution
In his apology, the pontiff requested forgiveness "for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples."
Murray Sinclair, who served as the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, said the pope's apology "left a deep hole" by failing to recognize the role the church itself played in the residential school system and instead "placing blame on individual members."
"It was more than the work of a few bad actors — this was a concerted institutional effort to remove children from their families and cultures, all in the name of Christian supremacy," Sinclair said in a statement Tuesday.
The TRC had listed a papal apology as one of its 94 calls to action.
Cody Groat, a professor at Western University and member of Six Nations of the Grand River in southern Ontario, says Pope Francis's earlier apology to an Indigenous delegation that travelled to see him in Rome was found lacking for a similar reason — placing blame on individuals rather than on the institution.
Groat, whose grandparents attended a residential school operated by the Anglican Church, says people are going to see the language and terms the pontiff used in Monday's apology in different ways, adding he feels it's an improvement from the spring.
"When you use remarks such as apologizing on behalf of the Christian faith, it perhaps acknowledges more of a broader incident that happened within a long history of colonialism."
Any mention of sexual abuse — or genocide
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in its call for a papal apology, said it should address the Catholic Church's role in the "spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse" of Indigenous children at residential schools.
Pope Francis said children suffered "physical, verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse," but did not mention sexual abuse.
Groat says the pontiff's words would have been carefully vetted before he delivered them and believes leaving out sexual abuse was a conscious effort.
"That is going to be something that is called out by a lot of people," he said.
"Not seeing Pope Francis directly acknowledge or apologize for sexual abuse, this is something that again, will be have to be followed up on."
Also absent from the pontiff's apology was the word "genocide." The commission concluded in its 2015 final report that Canada's residential school system amounted to a "cultural genocide."
A promise to release documents and artifacts
One of the outstanding calls the Vatican and Catholic entities in Canada are facing is to release more documents related to the operation of residential schools, and to return Indigenous artifacts.
The news last year that ground-penetrating radar had located what are believed to be hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites across Western Canada underscored the need for governments and Church authorities to turn over records that could help identify those who died, advocates and Indigenous leaders say.
Evelyn Korkmaz, a residential school survivor who attended St. Anne's residential school, noted the pope's apology didn't mention anything about handing over of church-held documents, which she said are desperately needed.
"These documents have our history," she said. "These documents hold the identification of these children. It would give their families and loved ones closure. Everybody needs closure in order to heal and move on. And this is all we're asking, is for those documents to be released. They belong here in Canada. They belong to us."
The Métis National Council had also called for artifacts held in the Vatican, which were taken from Métis people and communities, to be returned.
A commitment to reparations and compensation
The pontiff's apology and visit to Canada comes as the Catholic Church is facing criticism over not fulfilling the financial commitments it has made to survivors.
One of the main points of contention is over a "best efforts" fundraising campaign that 48 Catholic entities signed on to as part of compensating survivors under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement struck in 2006.
Of a stated $25-million goal for the fundraising effort, less than $4 million was raised before a judge ruled in 2015 that the entities were free from their obligations.
Last September, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced it would pledge $30 million to reconciliation-related initiatives over five years. Before Pope Francis's arrival, the bishops announced that dioceses had contributed $4.6 million to the effort so far.
Some survivors and Indigenous leaders have said the pontiff's apology should be followed by additional commitments to reparations or restitutions.
Cindy Blackstock, an advocate for child welfare and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, shared what she called a "to-do" list on social media to follow the apology.
It included: "Ensuring the church (not parishioners) provides reparations for residential school survivors, and the estates of children who died."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2022
Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press
