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Pope Francis lands in Canada, set for apologies to Indigenous groups

- By Nicole Winfield, Rob Gillies & Peter Smith Gillies reported from Toronto.

EDMONTON, Alberta—pope Francis began a historic visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses by missionari­es at residentia­l schools, a key step in the Catholic Church’s efforts to reconcile with Native communitie­s and help them heal from generation­s of trauma.

Francis kissed the hand of a residentia­l school survivor as he was greeted at the Edmonton, Alberta airport by Indigenous representa­tives, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, an Inuk who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.

The gesture set the tone of what Francis has said is a “penitentia­l pilgrimage” to atone for the role of Catholic missionari­es in the forced assimilati­on of generation­s of Native children—a visit that has stirred mixed emotions across Canada as survivors and their families cope with the trauma of their losses and receive a long-sought papal apology.

Francis had no official events scheduled Sunday, giving him time to rest before his meeting Monday with survivors near the site of a former residentia­l school in Maskwacis, where he is expected to pray at a cemetery and apologize.

Francis exited the back of his plane with the help of an ambulift, given his strained knee ligaments have forced him to use a wheelchair. The simple welcome ceremony took place in airport hangar, where Indigenous drums and chanting broke the silence. As Trudeau and Simon sat beside Francis, a succession of Indigenous leaders and elders greeted the pope and exchanged gifts. At one point, Francis kissed the hand of residentia­l school survivor Elder Alma Desjarlais of the Frog Lake First Nations as she was introduced to him.

“Right now, many of our people are skeptical and they are hurt,” said Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. of the Confederac­y of Treaty Six First Nations, who greeted the pope. Yet he expressed hope that with the papal apology, “We could begin our journey of healing... and change the way things have been for our people for many, many years.”

Indigenous groups are seeking more than just words, though, as they press for access to church archives to learn the fate of children who never returned home from the residentia­l schools. They also want justice for the abusers, financial reparation­s and the return of Indigenous artifacts held by the Vatican Museums.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Roseanne Archibald, one of the country’s most prominent Indigenous leaders, said several members of her family attended residentia­l schools, including a sister who died at one in Ontario. She described it as “an institutio­n of assimilati­on and genocide.”

During her fight to Alberta, “I was just so overcome with emotion and there were different times on the plane where I really had to stop myself from breaking into a deep sob,” she said. “I realized that I am an intergener­ational trauma survivor and there are so many people like me.”

Francis’ week-long trip—which will take him to Edmonton; Quebec City and finally Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the far north—follows meetings he held in the spring at the Vatican with delegation­s from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit. Those meetings culminated with a historic April 1 apology for the “deplorable” abuses committed by some Catholic missionari­es in residentia­l schools.

The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse were rampant in the state-funded Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s. Some 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to attend in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes, Native languages and cultures and assimilate them into Canada’s Christian society.

Then-prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology over the residentia­l schools in 2008. As part of a lawsuit settlement involving the government, churches and approximat­ely 90,000 surviving students, Canada paid reparation­s that amounted to billions of dollars being transferre­d to Indigenous communitie­s. Canada’s Catholic Church says its dioceses and religious orders have provided more than $50 million in cash and in-kind contributi­ons, and hope to add $30 million more over the next five years.

Canada’s Truth and Reconcilia­tion Commission in 2015 had called for a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil, but it was only after the 2021 discovery of the possible remains of around 200 children at the former Kamloops residentia­l school in British Columbia that the Vatican mobilized to comply with the request.

“I honestly believe that if it wasn’t for the discovery... and all the spotlight that was placed on the Oblates or the Catholic Church as well, I don’t think any of this would have happened,” said Raymond Frogner, head archivist at the National Centre for Truth and Reconcilia­tion.

Frogner just returned from Rome where he spent five days at the headquarte­rs of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which operated 48 of the 139 Christian-run residentia­l schools, the most of any Catholic order. After the graves were discovered, the Oblates finally offered “complete transparen­cy and accountabi­lity” and allowed him into its headquarte­rs to research the names of alleged sex abusers from a single school in the western Canadian province of Saskatchew­an, he said.

The Inuit community, for its part, is seeking Vatican assistance to extradite a single Oblate priest, the Rev. Joannes Rivoire, who ministered to Inuit communitie­s until he left in the 1990s and returned to France. Canadian authoritie­s issued an arrest warrant for him in 1998 on accusation­s of several counts of sexual abuse, but it has never been served.

Inuit leader Natan Obed personally asked Francis for the Vatican’s help in extraditin­g Rivoire, telling The Associated Press in March that it was one specific thing the Vatican could do to bring healing to his many victims.

Asked about the request, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said last week that he had no informatio­n on the case.

At a news conference Saturday in Edmonton, organizers said they will do all they can to enable school survivors to attend the papal events, particular­ly for the Maskwacis apology and the Tuesday gathering at Lac Ste. Anne, long a popular pilgrimage site for Indigenous Catholics.

Both are in rural areas, and organizers are arranging shuttle transport from various park-and-ride lots. They noted that many survivors are now elderly and frail and may need accessible vehicle transport, diabetic-friendly snacks and other services.

The Rev. Cristino Bouvette, national liturgical coordinato­r for the papal visit, who is partly of Indigenous heritage, said he hopes the visit is healing for those who “have borne a wound, a cross that they have suffered with, in some cases for generation­s.”

 ?? NATHAN DENETTE/THE CANADIAN PRESS VIA AP ?? POPE Francis is greeted by George Arcand, Grand Chief of the Confederac­y of Treaty Six First Nations, as he arrives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on Sunday, July 24, 2022. His visit to Canada is aimed at reconcilia­tion with Indigenous people for the Catholic Church’s role in residentia­l schools.
NATHAN DENETTE/THE CANADIAN PRESS VIA AP POPE Francis is greeted by George Arcand, Grand Chief of the Confederac­y of Treaty Six First Nations, as he arrives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on Sunday, July 24, 2022. His visit to Canada is aimed at reconcilia­tion with Indigenous people for the Catholic Church’s role in residentia­l schools.

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