Pope should apologize

The Catholic Church moves slowly, but it does move. It took the church more than half a century to say sorry for the complicity of some Christians in the Holocaust. It took 500 years for it to express regret for persecuting Protestants during the Reformation. And Pope John Paul II apologized for atrocities committed during the Crusaders’ attack on Constantinople almost eight centuries after they happened.

By that glacial standard, Pope Francis appears to be moving at lightning speed toward a papal apology for the church’s role in Canada’s residential-school tragedy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican to say that Francis seemed open to the idea and had offered to work with him on a “path forward” toward a formal apology.

The prime minister deserves credit for pressing the Pope directly on this important issue, sensitive as it is for the church. And Canada’s Catholic bishops should do all they can to clear the way for the Pope to issue a public apology — if possible, on Canadian soil.

Catholic organizations were responsible for running about three-quarters of the residential schools, whose legacy of sexual, physical and mental abuse still hangs heavily over Canada’s relations with indigenous peoples.

In light of Trudeau’s visit and Francis’s apparent willingness to consider an apology, it’s time for the bishops and others to revive efforts to right this historic wrong.

The Catholic Church as a whole should move beyond arguments over who is legally responsible for past actions. For its own sake and the sake of the survivors, it should get on the right side of efforts to heal the wounds.

Much better to do it late than to continue dodging an historic responsibility.