Pope makes a penitential pilgrimage to Canada

This week, Pope Francis travelled the length and breadth of Canada to apologise to the country’s Indigenous tribes for the decades of cruelty and cultural obliteration they endured at residential schools run by the Catholic Church.

School survivors had a range of feelings as a result of the pope’s penitential journey from Alberta to Quebec and a detour in far-north Nunavut before flying back to Rome on Saturday. The Holy Father’s apology for the “evil” of church employees and the “catastrophic effect” on the school system was well-received by some. Others claim that much more work has to be done to right historical wrongs and seek justice.

Pope Francis was even given a headdress by a First Nations chief, who temporarily put the respected accoutrement on the pope’s head to the delight of the gathering that had just heard him express his regret at the location of a former residential school. However, some Indigenous peoples thought Francis’ gesture was inconsistent with the wrongdoings in their country for which he expressed regret.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Native children in Canada were compelled to attend government-funded Christian schools. They were kept apart from their families and cultures to convert them to Christianity and assimilate them into what earlier Canadian administrations deemed to be a superior society. The abuse was pervasive.

The Canadian government made it clear this week that the pope’s apology fell short of what was necessary, and the First Nations chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada urged Francis to accept full responsibility for the church’s involvement in the educational system.

On Thursday, demonstrators raised a banner at the alter just before the pope performed Mass, calling for the revocation of the papal decrees that support the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery.” The concept and other hypotheses served as justification for the colonial-era appropriation of Native American lands and serve as the foundation for some current property laws.