MASKWACIS| “A devastating mistake”: Pope Francis on Monday issued a historic apology to the Native American peoples of Canada, asking “forgiveness for the wrong” done for decades in residential schools for natives.
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These words have been eagerly awaited for years by these peoples — First Nations, Métis and Inuit — who today represent 5% of the Canadian population.
“I am distressed. I ask forgiveness,” the pope said in Maskwacis, western Canada. Referring to a “devastating error”, he acknowledged the responsibility of some members of the Church in this system in which “children suffered physical and verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse”.
The Pope’s words, translated into English, were met with loud applause” after the request for forgiveness.
In total, the sovereign pontiff asked “forgiveness” three times, “with shame and clarity”, during this highly anticipated first speech, delivered in Spanish on the site of the former Ermineskin boarding school, in the presence of many survivors. and members of Indigenous communities (First Nations, Metis and Inuit), who appeared very moved.
“Policies of assimilation have ended up systematically marginalizing indigenous peoples (…) Your languages and cultures have been denigrated and suppressed” and “children have suffered physical and verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse”, further asserted Francois.
‘Important for reconciliation’
For this “penitential pilgrimage”, the pope placed the painful chapter of “residential schools” for indigenous children, a system of cultural assimilation that caused at least 6,000 deaths between the end of the 19th century and the 1990s, and created a trauma over several generations.
The Canadian government, which has paid billions of dollars in reparations to former students, officially apologized 14 years ago for establishing 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, responsible for more than 60% of these boarding schools, has always refused to do so.
It was in Maskwacis, an aboriginal reserve about a hundred kilometers south of Edmonton, that the pope chose to deliver his first apologies on Canadian soil, near the former Ermineskin boarding school, one of the Canada’s largest, open from 1895 to 1975.
To receive him, several thousand people had gathered, under a fine rain and in an atmosphere of contemplation. Many wore clothes with the name or logo of their community. Others, the orange T-shirt symbol of the natives.
“For me, this is a very special day, because I survived abuse from a Catholic priest when I was seven years old,” André Carrier, from the Manitoba Métis Federation, told AFP. on the head and medallion around the neck.
“It is a great pain that we have suffered. It is a time to forgive and work together with the Catholic Church for the future of the community. Several generations have not been respected, so this is a very important moment for reconciliation,” he adds.
The Pope will then proceed at 4:30 p.m. (22:30 GMT) to the Church of the Sacred Heart of First Peoples in Edmonton.
“I hope this visit is the beginning of a change in history and a way for us to begin our healing journey,” said George Arcand Jr, Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations. .
In April, the Holy Father had for the first time apologized to the Vatican for the role played by the Church in the 130 boarding schools in the country.
“Cultural Genocide”
Some 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly recruited into these schools, where they were cut off from their family, language and culture, and often subjected to physical, psychological and sexual violence.
Little by little, Canada is opening its eyes to this past, now called “cultural genocide”: the discovery of more than 1,300 anonymous graves in 2021 near these residential schools created a shock wave.
On Tuesday, the pope will celebrate a mass at Commonwealth stadium in Edmonton and will travel to Lac Sainte-Anne, site of an important annual pilgrimage. He will then join Quebec on Wednesday before a last stage on Friday in Iqaluit (Nunavut), a city in the Canadian Far North in the Arctic archipelago.
Still weakened by knee pain, the Argentinian Jesuit travels in a wheelchair. His program has been arranged to limit his movements.