Three generations of Manitoba’s Nepinak family were present Friday when Pope Francis apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential school system.
“I never thought I’d see that in my lifetime,” residential school survivor Frederick Nepinak told CTV News in Rome. “My wife and I got emotional there when he said that he’s very sorry.”
The traumatic legacy of residential schools is entrenched in their family history. Frederick and his wife Theresa Nepinak are both survivors. They were accompanied at the Vatican by their daughter-in-law Cindy Woodhouse, the Assembly of First Nation’s regional chief for Manitoba. “My mom tells me really horrific stories, my dad has told me really horrific stories, and it’s hard to hear them,” Woodhouse told CTV News. “All different kinds of emotions you could feel in that room: anger, and people trying to come to grips, I think, with how our lives have been transformed over the years.
Beginning in the late 1800s, approximately 150,000 Indigenous children were separated from their families and forced to attend residential schools, which aimed to replace their languages and culture with English and Christian beliefs. Largely run by the Catholic Church, numerous cases of abuse and
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