Pope says genocide took place in Canadian residential schools

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details

While the word genocide was not heard in any of Pope Francis’ addresses during a week-long trip to Canada, on his flight back to Rome he said that everything he described on the residential school system and its forced assimilation of Indigenous children amounts to genocide. .

“I didn’t use the word genocide because it didn’t occur to me, but I described genocide,” Pope Francis told reporters during the papal flight from Iqaluit to Rome on Friday. .

Over the past week, the Pope has traveled to Edmonton, Quebec and Iqaluit on a “penitential pilgrimage” of healing, reconciliation and hope between the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples.

Speaking to residential school survivors and their families in Maskwacis, Alberta, Francis expressed deep sadness for the harms suffered in church-run schools and asked for forgiveness “for the harm done by so many Christians to indigenous peoples”.

The Catholic Church ran more than half of the residential schools in Canada. More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend government-funded schools between the 1870s and 1997.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which published its final report in 2015, concluded that the school system amounted to cultural genocide.

Since 2021, when the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites made headlines, many have called what happened more than cultural genocide. Last year, NDP MP Leah Gazan made a failed attempt to get Parliament to recognize the residential school experience as genocide, because she believes it fits the definition of genocide drafted by the United Nations.

The United Nations defines the term as a number of acts committed with “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnic, racial or religious group”, such as killing members, inflicting injury bodily or mental harm to members, destroy in whole or in part, impose measures aimed at preventing births within a group, or forcibly transfer children from the group to another group.

The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg, which holds the records collected by the TRC, has documented 4,118 children who died in residential schools so far.

In his multiple addresses during the week, Pope Francis described the school system as a policy of assimilation and emancipation, and that it harms families by undermining their language, culture and worldview.

“I condemned it, kidnapping children, changing the culture, the spirit, the traditions, a so-called race. A whole culture,” Pope Francis told reporters.

“Yes, it’s a technical word, genocide. I didn’t use it because it didn’t cross my mind. But yes, I described it. Yes, it’s genocide. “

Repeal the Doctrine of Discovery

Indigenous peoples from coast to coast have called for the cancellation of the papal bulls that make up the Doctrine of Discovery.

Calls have intensified with each halt in the papal visit, with arguments that the papal bulls, or edicts, are the origin of genocide against Indigenous peoples and laid the groundwork for Canada to establish policies of assimilation like the residential school system.

Asked about publishing a statement on the Doctrine of Discovery, Francis did not answer the question directly but referred to it as a doctrine of colonization.

“It’s true, it’s wrong. It’s unfair. Even today it’s used,” he said. “This mentality, that we are superior and that indigenous people don’t matter, that’s why we have to work on … what has been done wrong, but with the awareness that even today this same colonialism exists.”

Support is available to anyone affected by their residential school experience or recent reports.

A National Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line has been established to provide support to former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis hotline: 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counseling and crisis support is also available 24/7 through the Hope for Wellness Helpline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.