For more than a century, 150,000 children from Canada’s various indigenous communities (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) have been forced to attend state boarding schools, many of which are run by the Catholic Church. Forced to leave their families, language and culture in an attempt to assimilate in what the truth commission called a “cultural genocide” in 2015, many were subjected to physical and sexual abuse and died from illness, malnutrition or neglect. In April, Pope Francis received delegations from these communities at the Vatican, apologizing for the Church’s role in these events. Now he is on a “pilgrimage of penance” to Canada, which he hopes can contribute to the “path of healing and reconciliation that has begun”.
Francis, 85, canceled trips to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan earlier this month due to health issues that made it difficult for him to move (he even appeared in a wheelchair). But he’s recovered for a six-day, 20,000-kilometer visit to Canada, under the motto “Walking Together”, which will take him to Edmonton, Maskwacis, Lac Ste. Anne (three in the Alberta region), to Quebec and finally to Iqualuit (in the Arctic region). Apart from at least five meetings with different indigenous peoples and survivors, this trip also includes two Masses (on Tuesdays and Thursdays).
On Wednesday, the Pope will meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who last year once again apologized to indigenous peoples on behalf of the government – in 2008, his predecessor Stephen Harper was the first to do so. , indicating that this is “a sad chapter” in the country’s history. Trudeau’s apology came after the graves of 215 children at one of the 139 schools – which operated between 1831 and 1996 – were discovered in May 2021, using ground-penetrating radar.
“Pain and Solidarity”
Francis is the second pope to visit Canada, with Pope John Paul II having visited the country three times – 1984, 1987 and 2002. The trip will serve to repeat the apology he made in April. “Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious orders, have contributed to a policy of cultural assimilation that, in the past, has severely harmed the indigenous population,” the Pope said last Sunday in his weekly intervention in St. Pedro, recalled that he already had the opportunity to “express my pain and solidarity in the face of the evil they have suffered”.
For the director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Montreal, Marie-Pierre Bousquet, an apology “would have had a greater impact” on Canadian soil, “especially because for indigenous cultures, ancestral lands are very important”. In an interview with AFP, he said that for many survivors, hopes were high, as they had been waiting for years for the opportunity “to speak and be heard”.
But it is also important for other Canadians, who in recent years have struggled to confront their history and the consequences of a system of assimilation that spans more than a hundred years. On September 30 last year, the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation was observed. Already in May this year, during a visit to Canada, Prince Charles, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, also acknowledged the plight of indigenous peoples. “We have to find new ways to deal with the darkest and most difficult aspects of the past. Recognizing, reconciling, and striving to do better is a process that begins with listening,” he said.
Return of the artifact?
When the delegation traveled to the Vatican in April, they found in the ethnological museum tens of thousands of artifacts and works of art made by indigenous peoples from around the world, many of them sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for exhibition in 1925. For At the Vatican, pieces The piece was dedicated to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the Catholic Church’s global reach and evangelization. But Canadian indigenous groups want these objects, which they see as culturally valuable, returned to their communities.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni did not rule out the possibility that the Pope could return some objects during the trip: “We will see what happens in the next few days”, he told reporters, quoted by AFP. This isn’t the first time the Vatican has returned one of these artifacts – just last year, a “tsansa”, a shrunken head used in rituals by Jivaros of the Amazon, was returned to Ecuador.
susan.f.salvador@dn.pt
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