Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged Pope Francis to come to Canada to apologize for church-run boarding schools where hundreds of unmarked graves have been found.
He also said that Canadians are “horrified and ashamed” by their government’s long-time policy of forcing Indigenous children to attend such schools.
Indigenous leaders said that 600 or more remains were discovered in the third week of June at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899 to 1997 in the province of Saskatchewan. In May, some 215 remains were reported at a similar school in British Columbia.
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools, most run by Catholic missionary congregations, in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society.
Indigenous leaders have called for Pope Francis to apologize – a demand echoed again on June 25 by Trudeau, who said the pontiff should visit Canada to do it.
“I have spoken personally directly with His Holiness, Pope Francis, to impress upon him how important it is not just that he makes an apology but that he makes an apology to indigenous Canadians on Canadian soil” Trudeau said.
“I know that the Catholic Church leadership is looking and very actively engaged in what next steps can be taken.”
Following that discovery of the British Columbia remains, Pope Francis expressed his pain and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he stopped short of a formal apology.
Archbishop Don Bolen of Regina, Saskatchewan, posted a letter to the Cowessess First Nation on the archdiocese’s website in which he repeated an apology he said he made two years ago.
Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the United, Presbyterian and Anglican churches, which earlier apologized for their roles in the abuse.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology in Parliament in 2008 and Canada offered billions of dollars in compensation as part of a lawsuit settlement between the government, churches and the approximately 90,000 surviving pupils.
The government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with pupils beaten for speaking their native languages. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, many never returned to their families.
“This was an incredibly harmful government policy that was Canada’s reality for many, many decades and Canadians today are horrified and ashamed of how our country behaved,” Trudeau said. “It was a policy that ripped kids from their homes, from their communities, from their culture and their language and forced assimilation upon them.”
“Canadians across the country are waking up to something that, quite frankly, Indigenous communities have long known,” Trudeau said.
“The trauma of the past echoes very much today.”
Indigenous leaders have called the residential schools a system of “cultural genocide.”
A search with ground-penetrating radar at the Marieval school resulted in 751 ″hits,″ indicating that at least 600 bodies were buried in the area after accounting for a margin of error in the search technique, said Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation, whose lands today include the school.
He said the gravesite is believed to hold both children and adults, and perhaps people from outside the community who attended church there.
Delorme said the individual graves had once been marked, but that the church at some point removed the markers.
Last month the remains of 215 children, some as young as three, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.
On June 25, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which operated 48 residential schools in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, including those where the bodies were recently found, said it will disclose all historical documents it has.
It said in a statement that it already has worked to make the documents available through universities, archives and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but that the work is not complete because of provincial and national privacy laws.
A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued a report in 2015 that identified about 3,200 confirmed deaths at schools, but noted the schools did not record the cause of death in almost half of them. Many died of tuberculosis, an illness symptomatic of the deplorable living conditions.
In the United States, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced this week that the federal government is launching an investigation into its past oversight of Native American boarding schools there. She said it will review records to identify past schools, locate burial sites and uncover the names and tribal affiliations of pupils.
Source: Associated Press
I think raw emotions are behind the comments here. Perhaps we should pause and learn some history before jumping to conclusion.
In mid-1800s, even before the formation of Canada, provincial politicians and most of the general public (European descendants) believed that residential school system was the solution to assimilate native/ aboriginal/ indigenous people and civilize them. The government developed a system similar to United States and in British colonies, where large, boarding-style industrial schools were used to convert Indigenous and poor children into “good industrious citizens”. 100 or even 50 yrs ago, the general public supported this policy. Now, when viewed with 21th century lenses, this policy seems obviously wrong.
This policy was funded and enforced by the government, however, the actually operation of these schools were mostly done by churches (Anglican, Lutheran & Catholic) and religious orders. The names of these schools reflect the non-denominational nature. Since various Catholic religious group had more manpower (nuns & priest), they ended up operating most of these residential schools. For the politicians and PM, it is perhaps convenient to pass the responsibility to the Church for the blunder of an official government policy.
Children died in almost all residential schools whether operated by religious groups or the government. Many of the deaths were due to deadly diseases which were exacerbated by cramped living space and poor ventilation. Some children died while attempting to escape the school in winter and froze to death. Since aboriginal children didn’t get the genuine oversight and supervision that children of European descent would have received, naturally more verbal, physical and sexual abuses occurred in these schools.
Media reports often use mass graves, mass murder and unmarked graves interchangeably. There’s a big difference between the three. What was found here are unmarked individual graves. At some point since mid-1800s the graves had their grave markings removed, that is, if they were actually placed there in the first place. These locations are fairly remote and currently have few residents (some less than 100). Since the schools closed or changed administration, perhaps over decades, the graves got neglected and overcome with vegetation and disappeared due to effects of weather and time.
The Catholic Bishops of those regions might have had some role in the administration of these schools. It’s far-fetched to suggest that the Pope had a role to play in the operation of these schools. The leadership of United Church of Canada (merger of 4 protestant denomination) and Anglican Church of Canada are resident within Canada and have apologized for their role in the schools system. Meanwhile, there is no Catholic Church of Canada or a visible single catholic leadership within Canada. Each Bishop operates independently and have offered apologies for the role of their diocese. This is not enough for many, and they are asking the Pope to formally apologize. This is like asking the Pope to apologize for abuses done by teachers and administrators in a government funded – church managed school in a remote village in Tamil Nadu.
After long gap Nedumparambil said some sensible suggestion.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s demand is very reasonable.
The Pope and the Vatican must wakeup and apologize for the “mass murders” in the catholic institutions in Canada. They must “close down” all their schools involved in such crimes.
It is better that the Canadian government bans the Catholic church in Canada for a period of time.
Incredible that this was going on or happened in Canada a developed country. Pope needs to reform his church. S suggestion : Eliminate completely the seminaries. Instead select married men in their 50s as priests after giving a year of ocrash course. They should be given salary and go home after work like everyone in society.