POPE APOLOGIZES FOR INDIGENOUS ABUSE IN CANADIAN CATHOLIC RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS

Pope Francis has apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse of Canadian Indigenous children in residential schools as he kicked off a weeklong “penitential pilgrimage” to the country in Edmonton, Alberta, on Monday.

The Pope begged for forgiveness in his speech at the meeting with Indigenous peoples and promised a “serious investigation” into decades of harm inflicted on Indigenous children, who suffered abuse and the erasure of Indigenous culture in the country’s residential schools,

“I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the Church and of religious communities cooperated, 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,” the pontiff said.

Last year, hundreds of unmarked graves were discovered on the grounds of former residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. And Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has reported that more than 4,000 Indigenous children died either from neglect or abuse in residential schools, many of which were run by the Catholic Church.

“In the face of this deplorable evil, the Church kneels before God and implores his forgiveness for the sins of her children,” said the Pope. “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples.”