Prior to his visit, Indigenous leaders made specific calls about what they wanted to see in the apology and where they hoped it would lead
OTTAWA — 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.
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." "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." 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.
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." 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.
"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."
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.
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