Indigenous leaders seek pope’s apology over abuses at Canadian schools

TORONTO — When an Assembly of First Nations delegation traveled to the Vatican in 2009 to meet with then-Pope Benedict XVI, the pontiff told them in a private meeting of his “personal anguish” over abuse suffered by Indigenous children in church-run boarding schools they were forced to attend in Canada.

What at the time was called an expression of regret is no longer seen as sufficient after last year’s discovery in British Columbia of about 200 unmarked and previously undocumented graves of children at what was Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school.

Indigenous leaders are expecting nothing less than a public apology from Pope Francis — with government officials up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lending support — for the church’s role in boarding school abuses. The pontiff is set to meet with First Nations, Metis and Inuit survivors at the Vatican this week ahead of a visit to Canada that could come later this year.

“We’re trying to give a voice to the voiceless by going there,” said Gary Gagnon, who will represent the Metis people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the delegation. Originally scheduled for December, the visit was postponed because of the covid-19 pandemic.

More than 150,000 native children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture and Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous governments considered superior.

The government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant, with students beaten for speaking their native languages. That legacy of abuse and isolation has been cited by Indigenous leaders as a root cause of epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction on reservations.

Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations.

Last May, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation announced the discovery of the grave sites near Kamloops, British Columbia, found using ground-penetrating radar. The sites have not yet been excavated, but they renewed a national reckoning as Indigenous groups across the country search for graves at other residential schools.

“What really spurred things forward was Kamloops,” said Phil Fontaine, who was national chief of the Assembly of First Nations in 2009. “It grabbed the attention of so many people.”

Fontaine, 77, said he and his classmates suffered physical and sexual abuse when he was a boy at the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School in Manitoba, where he was forbidden from seeing family except for two hours on Sundays even though they lived nearby.

“Finally Canadians are saying: ‘Oh, so it’s true. This is what happened at residential schools,’” he added. “And I think it put a lot of pressure on the Catholic Church and the Vatican. Keep in mind the prime minister himself asked Francis to apologize.”

A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission has records of at least 51 children dying at the Kamloops school between 1915 and 1963.

Nationwide, the commission identified about 3,200 confirmed deaths at residential schools amid poor conditions, some from tuberculosis, but noted that the cause of death was not recorded for almost half of them.