Vatican City: Pope Francis is beginning his Canada visit today. The main goal of the trip is to apologise to Indigenous survivors in person for the abuse and genocide committed by residential schools run by the Catholic Church.
The Pope has called the visit a "penitential pilgrimage" of "healing and reconciliation". The commission has called the death of Native American children a "cultural genocide," reported AFP.
However, the Pope will not be visiting British Columbia where 200 unmarked graves were discovered on the grounds of a former residential school in May 2021. The incident led to outrage and nationwide calls for justice.
The graves were found in Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc, a First Nations community in British Columbia. Following this, other First Nations began searches which led to the discovery of graves in large numbers.
According to estimates, about 150,000 First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children were forcibly sent to 139 residential schools run by the Church. This was an effort to integrate the natives into the westernised society White colonisers were building in the region.
From the late 1800s to the 1990s, native children were taken from their families and forbidden to contact them. They were given English names, not allowed to speak their mother tongue, wear their traditional attires, and braid their hair as per their tribal style.
The last residential school was located in Saskatchewan and it was closed in 1996.
These children were physically and sexually abused by those who run the schools on behalf of the church. They were also subjected to beatings and emotional torture. Thousands of children are estimated to have died of disease, malnutrition, and neglect.
Their bodies were not sent to their families and many indigenous survivors do not know what happened to their family members as they were not informed. Since May 2021, over 1,300 unmarked graves have been discovered at the sites of these former residential schools.
There was an uproar demanding that the Canadian government and Catholic Church take responsibility for their deaths and do more to support the surviving members of the community. A delegation of Indigenous people visited the Pope in the Vatican in April 2022.
Many survivors believe that the Church's gesture is too little and too late because they spent years in these schools where they lost culture and ancestry.
The Pope will be meeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Edmonton's international airport on Tuesday. This is the longest flight the 85-year-old Pope took since 2019.
According to AFP, he will then head northwest to the Lac Sainte Anne, a popular pilgrimage site. The Catholic leader will be in Quebec City from July 27-29. The trip will end in Iqaluit where the largest Inuit population lives where the Pope is scheduled to meet former residential school students.