Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2021 / 10:01 am
The Archbishop of Toronto last week responded to requests for a papal apology over abuses at Canadian Catholic-run schools for First Nations and other Indigenous children.
A papal apology would need to happen on a papal visit to Canada, said Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto on June 3. This would require “a number of steps from both government and church leadership as well as significant logistical, financial commitments and other considerations,” he said. The cardinal issued a written statement and responses to “frequently asked questions” on the matter of the Catholic-run residential schools.
The pope has already called on individual bishops to continue the process of reconciliation in their own dioceses, he added.
“Pope Francis has encouraged the Bishops to continue taking leadership and assuming their proper role in pursuing their pastoral engagement and reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples, including ongoing conversations among the Bishops and Elders,” he continued. “This work builds on past apologies, dialogue and the desire to move forward together.”
On the weekend of May 22, the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, Canada. The discovery was made with ground-penetrating radar. It is unclear how the children died.
The residential school in Kamloops operated from 1890 until 1978, established by the federal government and overseen by Catholics from 1890 until the Oblates of Mary Immaculate ran the school beginning in 1893. In 1969, the government took back control of the school.
The Kamloops school was at one point the largest school in the entire residential school system, which was established in Canada beginning in the 1870s and was overseen by the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations. The last operating residential school closed in 1996.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which operated from 2008 until 2015, reported on a history of abuses in the system. Children from First Nations and other Indigenous communities were separated from their families and placed in the residential schools as a means of forcible assimilation and enculturation, which was meant to strip them of family and cultural ties. An estimated 4,100 to 6,000 First Nations and other Indigenous children died as a result of neglect or abuse in the system, the commission found.