The Pope has apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the tragedy of residential schools – a move that residential school survivors have been awaiting for decades.
“I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart, I am very sorry, and I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon clearly,” Pope Francis told Indigenous delegates assembled at the Vatican on Friday. “The content of the faith cannot be transmitted in a way contrary to faith itself.”
“I also feel shame and I’m saying it now … for the role that the number of Catholics, particularly those with educational responsibilities, have had and all these things that wounded you [and] the abuse you suffered, and in the lack of respect shown for your identity and culture.”
But it does mean that, to this day, no human remains have been found at any former residential school in Canada.
Media in Canada first reported on mass graves at residential schools in May 2021. Archeologists detected what they believed to be 200 unmarked graves at an old school in Kamloops, British Columbia.
To this date, no excavations of that site has occurred. Local elders have cited intergenerational trauma as the reason for leaving potential proof of a genocide buried.
The 200 “unmarked graves” in Kamloops were identified by the same technology that identified the 14 in Manitoba, which we now know turned out to be nothing more than a pile of rocks underground.
This is a bit hard to accept on the word of one “conservative website”.
It’s been over 2 years since the story broke, with some saying the total of unmarked graves might run to multiple thousands. I haven’t found much by Googling, but surely the Canadian government has investigated this and has advanced the state of understanding beyond mere speculation.
I had assumed that there had been exhumations, but it looks like not only have there not, but there have been calls to outlaw “denialism” wanting proof that the “suspected” graves are actually graves.
And there have been sites where excavations were done, and they found bupkis.
Unsurprisingly, the indigenous people of Canada do not find “But the US treated its indigenous people just as badly” a compelling defense of the crimes the government of Canada committed against them.