Pope should visit Canada and apologise to indigenous people: Trudeau
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A photo dated circa 1910, showing the Marieval Mission Church next to the Marieval Residential School in Canada. An indigenous group on Thursday said 751 unmarked graves had been found at the site of the school.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
OTTAWA • Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has asked the Pope to come to the country to apologise for the Catholic Church's role in running residential schools for indigenous children, after nearly 1,000 bodies were found in two mass graves.
"I have spoken personally directly with His Holiness Pope Francis to press upon him how important it is not just that he makes an apology but that he makes an apology to indigenous Canadians on Canadian soil," Mr Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa on Friday.
"I know that the Catholic Church leadership is looking and very actively engaged in what next steps can be taken."
Indigenous group Cowessess First Nation on Thursday said 751 unmarked graves had been found at the site of Marieval Residential School in Saskatchewan province, just weeks after 215 unmarked graves were discovered at a former school in British Columbia.
The residential school system, which operated between 1831 and 1996, removed about 150,000 indigenous children from their families and placed them in Christian residential schools, mostly Catholic, run on behalf of the federal government.
A federal commission's report found the residential school system enacted cultural genocide on Canada's indigenous people.
"I have heard directly from many Catholics across this country who want to see the church play a positive role in this," Mr Trudeau added.
Earlier this month, Pope Francis stopped short of a direct apology but said he was pained by the discovery of the remains of 215 children and called for respect for the rights and cultures of native peoples.
Mr Trudeau apologised for "harmful government policies" and did not rule out a criminal probe. "This was an incredibly harmful government policy that was Canada's reality for many, many decades and Canadians today are horrified and ashamed of how our country behaved, about a policy that ripped kids from their homes, from their communities, from their culture and their language and forced assimilation upon them," he said.
"To the members of the Cowessess community and Treaty Four communities, we are sorry," he added.
"It was something that we cannot undo in the past, but we can pledge ourselves every day to fix it in the present and into the future."
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE