Some appreciate the significance of the Pope’s apology for residential school abuse, while others say it’s unlikely to do much to heal their community
Charlotte Manuel rose at dawn on Friday at her home on the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nation, in British Columbia, to watch Pope Francis apologize in person to nearly 200 Indigenous leaders for the role Catholics played in the tragedy of Canada’s residential school system.
Ms. Manuel left the church when she felt shunned after a divorce decades ago, and has since embraced the spiritual practices of her nation. When she went on Facebook later on Friday, she said, she saw reactions to the apology that were decidedly more negative than her own. Like communities across Canada, hers holds many different opinions on the Pope’s words.
The detection of hundreds more burials at other former residential school sites, also with ground-penetrating radar, jumpstarted public and political pressure on the Catholic Church to atone for its role and honour its past commitments to reparations. This past week’s visit to Rome – during which Inuit, Métis and First Nations delegations met separately and collectively with the Pope over several days – was a direct result of that attention.
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