The Canadian government made it clear on Wednesday that Pope Francis’s apologies to indigenous people for abuses at boarding schools used by the church in the country are insufficient, hinting that reconciliation around the painful history remains largely unresolved. a work in progress.
The official government reaction was issued upon the pontiff’s arrival in Quebec to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Mary Simon at the official’s residence in that city, the Citadelle fortress located on top of a hill, in the second leg of the pope’s week-long visit to Canada.
sexual abuse
The government’s criticism echoes that of some survivors, and concerns Francis’ failure to make any reference to the sexual abuse of indigenous children in schools, as well as his original reluctance to declare that the Catholic Church as an institution had responsibility in the matter. happened.
Francis has said he is making a “penitential pilgrimage” to atone for the Church’s role in the boarding school system, in which generations of indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and forced to attend government-funded institutions. the Church and the government to assimilate them to the Canadian society, of Christian religion. The Canadian government has said that physical and sexual abuse was constant in schools, with students being beaten for speaking their native languages.
The pope apologized on Monday for the “badness” of the church personnel who worked in the schools and for the “catastrophic” aftermath of the school system in indigenous families. In a speech to government officials on Wednesday, Francis reiterated his apology and censured the school system, saying it was “deplorable.”
The pontiff noted that this system was “promoted by the government authorities of the time” as part of a policy of assimilation and emancipation. But in response to criticism, he added that “several local Catholic institutions were involved.”
Indigenous peoples have long demanded that the pope take responsibility not only for the abuses committed by certain Catholic priests and religious orders, but for the institutional support of the Catholic Church for assimilation policies and the religious justification of the papacy in the fifteenth century to European colonial expansion to propagate Christianity.
family isolation
More than 150,000 indigenous children in Canada were removed from their homes in the 19th century through the 1970s and placed in schools in an attempt to isolate them from the influence of their families and culture.
Trudeau, a Catholic whose father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister when the last boarding schools were still operating, insisted that the Catholic Church, as an institution, bears guilt and must do more to atone for it.
Records.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed to Pope Francis during their meeting in Quebec the need for the Vatican to “take concrete measures” for its reconciliation with the original peoples, such as the return of objects owned by the Vatican or the opening of files on residential schools where indigenous children suffered all kinds of abuse, reported yesterday in a statement.
