world religions

The Pope in Canada to ask forgiveness of indigenous peoples

Pope Francis presented the apologies of the Catholic Church to the indigenous representatives he received at the Vatican, on April 1, 2022. via REUTERS - VATICAN MEDIA

By: Véronique Gaymard Follow

2 mins

Pope Francis is going to Canada, from July 24 to 30, 2022, for a visit eagerly awaited by the indigenous populations (more than 50 nations, Amerindians, Inuit, mestizos): he should again apologize, this time on the lands Canadian.

In early April 2022, he asked for forgiveness for the first time on behalf of the Catholic Church from Canadian indigenous delegations he had received at the Vatican, for the institution's responsibility in the abuse, mistreatment and death of numerous children. natives placed in boarding schools run mostly by Catholics.

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From 1830 to 1996, more than 150,000 Aboriginal children had been sent there to evangelize them, make them little Canadians and “kill the Indian in the heart of the child”.

Around

6,000 are said to have never returned home.

The discovery in May 2021 of unmarked children's graves near former residential schools sent shock waves through the country.

Despite these sufferings, many natives remained attached to the Catholic Church.

Others reject it, considering it as the Church of whites and colonization, and now claim indigenous spiritualities.

Participants:

  • Marie-Pierre Bousquet

    , Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Native Studies program at the University of Montreal

  • Projects and publications:

    - “ 

    Knowing where you come from to know where you are going: the story of Simo Sagihiganiwinnik put on display

     ”

    .

    - “

    The wound that slept soundly;

    the legacy of residential schools in Quebec

    ” (with the participation of Marie-Pierre Bousquet and Jean-François Roussel)

    - "Religious dynamics of the natives of the Americas

     " (under the direction of Marie-Pierre Bousquet and Robert Crépeau), (Ed. Karthala, 2012).

  • Jean-François Roussel

    , associate professor at the Institute of Religious Studies, University of Montreal

  • Latest publications:

    - “Kateri Tekahkwitha.

    Crossing the Colonial Mirror”.

    University of Montreal Press (2022)

    - “Natives and Christianity.

    A contested membership.

    Relationships, no.

    816: 62-63 (2022

    )

    - “

    Encountering Indigenous spirituality: a practice of decolonization

    ”.

    Theological 26 (2) (2019).

  • Emma Anderson

    , professor at the University of Ottawa, specialist in the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Catholic Church.

  • Author of:

    - “Residential School Saint: The Life, Death, and Turbulent Afterlife of Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation”, article in Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, Vol.

    89, #2, September 2020, p.

    592-632.

    - “The Death and Afterlife of the North American Martyrs”

    , Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2013.

    - " 

    The betrayal of faith 

    " (Press editions of the University of Laval - 2008).

  • Interviews in Canada by Alexis Gacon

     :       

    • Evelyn Korkmaz

      , survivor of St. Anne's Residential School, Fort Albany

    • Angela White

      , member of "Advocates for Clergy Trauma Survivors in Canada"

    • Father Yoland Ouellet

      , of the Oblate Congregation, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in French-speaking Canada.

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  • Religion

  • Pope Francis

  • Canada

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