The Canadian Catholic Church has apologized for a century of abuse of Indigenous people by setting up government-run boarding schools set up by the government to integrate Indigenous children into the mainstream.
The move follows recent discoveries in the unmarked graves of 1,200 indigenous children who were forcibly taken to these schools.
The Catholic Church said in a statement: We, the Catholic Bishops of Canada, express our deep regret and our sincere apologies.
According to the Pak Sahafat news agency quoted by National newspaper, students in these schools were physically and sexually abused by principals and teachers, depriving them of their culture and language. Indigenous Canadian communities continue to grapple with the persistent damage of a failed government policy.
The apology comes less than a week before the first “National Day of Truth and Reconciliation,” which is set to commemorate missing school children and school survivors on September 30.
In the statement, the bishops said they acknowledged the “suffering experienced by the students” and the “serious abuses” inflicted on them, citing “physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, cultural and sexual abuse”.
They said: “Many Catholic religious communities and dioceses participated in this system, which led to the suppression of indigenous languages, cultures and spirituality, and to disrespect for the rich history, traditions and wisdom of the indigenous people.” “We also unfortunately acknowledge the historical and current damage and the legacy of the suffering and challenges facing indigenous peoples that continue to this day.”
The bishops also said a delegation of Indigenous Canadians is scheduled to travel to the Vatican in December to meet with the pope. At the same time, they pledged to work with the Vatican and local leaders to plan for Pope Francis’ visit to Canada.
In late July, a Canadian media outlet reported the discovery of a fourth mass grave of more than 160 Indigenous children at a former school in the western province of the country in a matter of weeks.
The publication of the horrific story of the discovery of hundreds of mass graves on the grounds of old boarding schools from which the bodies of Native Canadian children were exhumed has sparked tensions in the country claiming human rights and a dispute between the Canadian government and the Vatican. Canadian media reported three times in the previous weeks that mass graves had been discovered where nearly 1,000 Native Canadian children had been buried.
Between 1883 and 1996, some 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families and sent to boarding schools established by the Catholic Church, with the primary goal of alienating these children from Canadian indigenous communities and preventing the spread of the language and their maternal traditions.
Instead of apologizing to Indigenous people whose children have been victims of the racist crime of boarding schools in recent years, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized to Pope Francis, the world’s Catholic leader, and blamed the Vatican.