EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada (AP) — Pope Francis began a historic visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to indigenous people for abuses by missionaries in Catholic boarding schools, a key step in the Church’s efforts to reconcile with indigenous communities. natives and help them heal from traumas that span generations.
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Francisco kissed the hand of a victim of abuse in one of those boarding schools when he was received at the airport in Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, by indigenous representatives, by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and by Mary Simon, an Inuk who is the Canada’s first indigenous female Governor General.
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The gesture set the tone for what the pontiff has said is a “penitential pilgrimage” to atone for the role Catholic missionaries played in the forced integration of generations of indigenous children into Canadian culture, a visit that has sparked a mixed bag of emotions across Canada, as victims and their families cope with the trauma of their losses and receive a long-demanded papal apology.
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The pontiff had no official events scheduled for Sunday, which would give him time to rest before his Monday meeting with victims near a former boarding school in the town of Maskwacis, where he is expected to pray at a cemetery and offer apologies.
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Francisco got out of the back of the plane with the help of an ambulift vehicle, since he suffers from an inflamed knee ligament and has been forced to use a wheelchair. The simple welcome ceremony took place in an airport hangar, where indigenous drums and chants broke the silence. As Trudeau and Simon sat next to the pope, a number of indigenous leaders and elders greeted him and exchanged gifts. At one point, the pontiff kissed the hand of Elder Alma Desjarlais, a member of the First Lake Indian Nation and a victim of boarding school abuse, when she was introduced to him.
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“Right now, a lot of our people are skeptical and hurt,” said Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. of the Treaty Six Confederation of First Nations, who greeted the pope. However, he expressed hope that, with the papal apology, “we can start our journey to heal … and change the way things have been for our people for many, many years.”
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However, indigenous groups are seeking more than just words, and have pushed for access to Church archives to learn the fate of children who never returned home from boarding schools. They also want punishment for abusers, financial reparations for victims and the return of indigenous artifacts held by the Vatican Museums.
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RoseAnne Archibald, national head of the Assembly of First Nations, said several members of her family attended boarding schools, including a sister who died at one in the province of Ontario. She said it was “an institution of integration and genocide.”
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During the flight to Alberta, “I was so overwhelmed with emotion, and there were several moments on the plane where I really had to make an effort to keep from bursting into tears,” she said. “I realized that I am a victim of intergenerational trauma and that there are many people like me.”
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Francisco’s week-long trip—in which he will visit Edmonton; the city of Quebec and finally the town of Iqaluit, in the province of Nunavut, in the north of Canada – is carried out after meetings he held in the Vatican at the beginning of the year with delegations from the Original Nations, the metis and the Inuit. Those interviews culminated in a historic apology on April 1 for the “deplorable” abuses committed by some Catholic missionaries in boarding schools.
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