PM gets 10 minutes for papal meeting

VATICAN CITY— Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised the troubling findings of the residential schools commission Thursday during an unusually brief meeting with Pope Francis, but stopped short of inviting him to Canada to apologize.

Instead, Harper referred to a letter sent earlier in the week to the Vatican by his aboriginal affairs minister that merely notified the Holy See of the commission.

“Prime Minister Harper also drew attention to the letter sent by Minister (Bernard) Valcourt to the Holy See regarding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Harper’s office said without elaborating.

Harper’s spokesman did not respond to a media request for clarification.

Harper’s 10-minute meeting with the Pope Francis was surprisingly short by Vatican standards. Russian President Vladimir Putin had a nearly 50-minute private audience with the pontiff a day earlier.

A separate message from the Vatican did not mention the residential schools issue among the topics discussed with Harper.

Harper instead chose to pursue the theme that has dominated six-day trip to Europe — his condemnation of Putin.

Harper went into the meeting facing calls to use the occasion to secure a papal apology for the church’s role in Canada’s residential school legacy.

Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, had said the meeting would be a “prime opportunity” for the prime minister to raise the issue.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which spoke to thousands of residential school students and documented their experiences, issued 94 recommendations last week that included a call for a papal apology on Canadian soil.

Bellegarde said a direct apology from the Pope “would be huge” and would help bring closure to those who suffered atrocities and abuses at the schools, many of which were run by the Roman Catholic Church.

In April 2009, then-AFN national chief Phil Fontaine along with four aboriginal leaders and a delegation from Canada’s Catholic Church had an audience with Pope Benedict in Rome, which produced a communique of sympathy from the Vatican.

Harper’s visit to the Vatican came on the final day of his six-country European tour, and exactly seven years after the prime minister issued his own apology in the House of Commons to residential school survivors.

Canadian officials said that because Putin visited Francis the day before Harper, the prime minister wanted to raise the topic.

Harper was at the Vatican for slightly less than an hour, but his actual meeting with the Pope lasted only a fraction of that time. He also met with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states.