Subway, Suara.com – Pope Francis pleaded for forgiveness for Indigenous Canadians who survived the persecution that took place in Canadian residential schools, calling what the Catholic Church did to them a “disaster.”

“I humbly ask forgiveness for the crimes committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples (of Canada),” the pope said from the scene in the courtyard of the Ermineskin residential school in Maskwacis, Alberta, to two thousand survivors seated in a pow – traditional wow. – a sacred gathering of the indigenous peoples of North America.

Four tribal leaders sat next to the Pope as he delivered a long-awaited apology in which he was responsible for the institutional cooperation of Catholic churches in a policy of “catastrophic” assimilation, which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has described as equivalent to “cultural genocide”. .”

More than 150,000 Indigenous children in Canada were forced to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century to the 1970s to isolate them from the influences of their home and culture. The goal was to Christianize and assimilate them to mainstream society, which the former Canadian government deemed superior.

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The Canadian government has recognized endemic physical and sexual abuse in these schools, where students are beaten for speaking their native language.

The discovery of hundreds of burial sites at former residential schools last year drew global attention to the legacy of similar schools in Canada and the United States.

The findings prompted Pope Francis to heed the truth commission’s call for him to apologize on Canadian soil for the role of the Catholic Church, recalling 66 of 139 school in canada administered by the Catholic Religious Order.

The pope himself has acknowledged the institutional wrongdoing, explaining that Catholic missionaries are merely cooperating and implementing the government’s policy of assimilation, which he calls “the colonial mentality of the rulers”.

He called for further investigations, possibly referring to demands by indigenous groups for more access to parish registers and the personal data of priests and nuns in order to identify those responsible for the persecutions.

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