Pope Francis to discuss apology with Indigenous leaders in Canada over church’s role in school abuse

Pope Francis is to meet with Indigenous leaders in Canada later this year to discuss making an apology for the church's role in the abuse of children in the school system, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has said.

In schools that operated for over 100 years - and which were run by the church - Indigenous children were forced to assimilate.

Leaders in Indigenous communities have long called for an apology over the US government-created residential schools, with the system being described as "cultural genocide".

Those calls have intensified in recent weeks after Indigenous communities announced they had discovered hundreds of unmarked graves containing human remains, most of them children.

In a statement on Wednesday, the CCCB said: "Pope Francis is deeply committed to hearing directly from Indigenous Peoples, expressing his heartfelt closeness, addressing the impact of colonisation and the role of the Church in the residential school system, in the hopes of responding to the suffering of Indigenous Peoples and the ongoing effects of intergenerational trauma.

"The Bishops of Canada are deeply appreciative of the Holy Father’s spirit of openness in generously extending an invitation for personal encounters with each of the three distinct groups of delegates – First Nations, Métis and Inuit – as well as a final audience with all delegates together on 20 December 2021."

In recent months investigators using ground-penetrating radar have reported finding hundreds of unmarked graves at the sites of two residential schools for Indigenous children, including sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The discoveries — more than 600 graves in one school, 215 bodies in another — have revived calls, including from prime minister Justin Trudeau, for the pope to make a formal apology.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, with many never returned to their families.

Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which today is the largest Protestant denomination in the country.

The radar scans offered no information about how the children died.

The government formally apologised for the policy and abuses in 2008. In addition, the Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches have apologised for their roles in the abuse.

The Canadian bishops didn’t address the demand for a papal apology in the statement, saying only that Francis was “deeply committed to hearing directly from Indigenous peoples.”

It said he had personally invited the delegations of Indigenous and would use the meetings for “expressing his heartfelt closeness, addressing the impact of colonization and the role of the Church in the residential school system, in the hopes of responding to the suffering of Indigenous peoples and the ongoing effects of intergenerational trauma.”

A papal apology was one of 94 recommendations from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but the CCCB said in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for the residential schools.

Additional reporting by Associated Press