Pope Francis has stated that his next trip to Canada will be a "pilgrimage of penance" that he hopes will help heal the wounds that abusive Roman Catholic priests and nuns who tried to forcibly integrate children caused in Indigenous communities.
Francis is expected to follow through on a promise to apologize to victims on their home territory for the church's involvement in state-sanctioned schools that sought to eradicate Indigenous cultures by uprooting approximately 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children and subjecting some of them to abuse, rape, and malnutrition in what a Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission dubbed "cultural genocide" in 2015. The apology is expected to take place during the trip from July 24 to July 30.Francis remarked in his weekly speech to the people on Sunday in St. Peter's Square, "Unfortunately, many Christians in Canada, including some members of religious orders, contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation that in the past profoundly affected native populations in various ways."
I'm going to embark on a penitential trip, and with God's help, I pray that it will help advance the already begun process of healing and reconciliation.The pope and Indigenous envoys who visited the Vatican in March and April discussed the schools extensively. The summit produced the pope's long-awaited apology, but Indigenous leaders also urged for the pope to travel to their home country.
Francis recalled the conversations and said that he had shared "my sadness and solidarity over the horror that they faced" during them on Sunday.The 85-year-old pope will travel to Iqaluit in Canada's Arctic territory, Maskwacis, Lac Ste Anne, Quebec, and Edmonton. Nine homilies, addresses, and two masses are all arranged for him.Many thousands of people are thought to have perished while attending the residential schools, which were in operation from 1831 until 1996.
Recent years' discoveries of unmarked graves at old residential school locations across Canada have sparked increased demands for accountability, including an apology from the Catholic Church.
At the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, in western Canada, the remains of 215 kids were discovered last year. In 1978, the school was closed.Early in July, a final settlement worth $15.5 billion was struck between the Canadian government and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) over compensation for Indigenous children who had endured years of discrimination in receiving government services.
[zombify_post]
0 Comments