The president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national organization representing the Inuit, spent his career listening to the damage caused by the institutions. He said his father attended a non-Catholic residential school in Newfoundland, so he also experienced the effects of the trauma between generations. “It affected my life a lot,” Obed said. “I understand the need for further treatment.” CLOCKS “To feel recognized as human beings”:

The Inuit leader discusses the importance of papal apology for home schools

Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, explains why Pope Francis should apologize for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in running residential schools. 1:05
Obed said he intended to invite the pope to visit the Inuit Nunangat homeland, which stretches from Nunavut through northern Quebec to Labrador. He said he also intended to ask Pope Francis to ensure that those still alive who committed crimes against children while working in Catholic-run schools would be brought to justice. “The most important thing for the Pope to understand is that we are still collecting the pieces,” Obed said. “There is an accountability that never seems to return to the foundation, but always relies on those most affected, and especially the descendants of those most affected.”

The Archbishop expects the Pope to apologize

The pope is holding private hourly hearings with more than 30 members of the First Nation, Inuit and Métis delegations this week. The Métis representatives will first meet with the Pope on Monday, followed by a separate meeting with the Inuit and a meeting with the First Nations representatives on Thursday. A mental health support worker will be in the room for these meetings, along with an interpreter. The Pope is expected to spend most of his time listening during each meeting and making brief remarks in Italian or Spanish. CLOCKS What could the Vatican reconciliation meetings mean:

What could the Pope’s meeting with the indigenous communities mean for reconciliation?

Indigenous representatives are meeting with Pope Francis in the hope that he will pledge an official apology for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools in Canada. Here’s why it matters and how things could change. 1:17
He is expected to formally respond to the delegates before a final public hearing on Friday, which will be attended by 150 people from all three delegations, including their family members and support staff. The meetings are expected to lay the groundwork for an upcoming pope trip to Canada. Most importantly, it’s an opportunity for Pope Francis to publicly apologize for the Roman Catholic Church’s leading role in operating most of Canada’s residential schools – something that indigenous organizations have been demanding for years. Pope Francis is expected to have three private meetings with indigenous representatives and address a public meeting on Friday. (Andrew Medichini / AP)
More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children were forced to attend church-run, government-funded institutions between the 1870s and 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission – which reviewed Canada’s school housing record from 2008 to 2015 – has issued a papal apology as part of its 94 calls for action. Although the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has apologized, the pope has not yet apologized. CLOCKS “I can not reconcile without this truth”:

Caron: “Apologize for the mistake”

Cassidy Caron, chairman of the Métis National Council, explains what Métis’s representatives are looking for in the Roman Catholic Church. 0:53
The Archbishop of Edmonton, Richard Smith, who is one of six bishops traveling to Rome with the delegates, said he expected the pope to “listen to them deeply.” “And I think we can believe he will say what needs to be said,” Smith added. The meetings are described by the church as an “encounter” between the Pope and the Indigenous Peoples – an attempt to understand the impact of church-run residential schools on the natives through the words of their children and grandchildren.

“A remarkable, remarkable moment”

“It continues to challenge people to create a culture of encounter, in which people really meet, listen to each other, learn from each other,” Smith said. “This is going to be a remarkable, memorable moment. A historic moment.” Smith said that during a visit to the Vatican in 2017, he and other Canadian bishops received a clear message from Pope Francis that he had pledged to work with them and with indigenous peoples for healing and reconciliation. “As he listened to us tell the stories we heard from the Indigenous Peoples, you could just see the empathy, the pain, the sadness etched deep, deep in his face,” Smith said. “It was at that point that he told us, ‘Look, you are the local shepherds. You are the local bishops. You are the ones with the direct relations with the indigenous populations in your respective areas. I need you. .. to continue walking with them “. Since then, the CCCB has been working on the planning of the papal audience with the three main national organizations representing the Indigenous Peoples – ITK, the Métis National Council and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). Metis National Council President Cassidy Caron hugs Elder Angie Krarar, a school survivor who is part of the Metis delegation meeting with Pope Francis. (Cassidy Caron / Provided)
The visit, paid by the bishops, was due to take place last December, but was postponed due to the global outbreak of Omicron cases. “Having such a rapid change in the Pope’s calendar is really a remarkable message that he really looks forward to meeting and hearing from Native delegations,” Smith said.

The Pope must apologize on Canadian soil: a representative of Métis

Papal apology is the number one priority for the Métis delegation. But for it to count, it has to happen on Canadian soil, said Métis National Council (MNC) President Cassidy Caron. “I do not think it will be enough for the pope to just apologize in person,” said Caron, who heads the Métis delegation. “I myself am not a direct survivor of boarding schools and we owe this apology to our survivors and their families, and not just to a few who are fortunate enough to have the privilege of traveling to the Vatican.” Caron meets weekly with Métis representatives in preparation for the trip. He also traveled around the country to visit school survivors and community members. “We saw it as an opportunity to go through and share the stories of the Métis Nation, to really understand the similarities, but also the unique experiences of the First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit,” he said. CLOCKS The Archbishop recalls that he received clear instructions from Pope Francis:

Archbishop of Edmonton for Pope Francis and residential schools

Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith narrates a meeting between Pope Francis and Canadian bishops in 2017 about the implications of the school housing system. 1:09
Caron said she also plans to urge the Pope to publish community records related to residential schools. “This way we will fully understand what was happening, what this story is, what these experiences of our people are,” Caron said. “We are defending more than the archives of the schools. We are defending the archives of the communities in which these churches were located.”

AFN to ask the Pope to return the traditional lands

The meetings are a follow-up to a 2009 AFN meeting with Pope Benedict XVI – who expressed “regret” over the abuse and deplorable treatment of indigenous students in home schools, but did not apologize for the church’s actions. Prime Minister Justin Trinto apologized papally during a private hearing with Pope Francis in 2017, but said he had left “disappointed”. At the time, the president of the CCCB said that Pope Francis did not shy away from acknowledging the injustices faced by indigenous peoples around the world, but could not personally apologize for home schools. CLOCKS The head of the AFN delegation discusses the upcoming trip to Rome:

The Catholic Church must apologize for the “mistake made”: Dene National Chief

Dene National leader Gerald Antoine is leading the AFN delegation in Rome this week to pressure the pope to apologize for the church’s role in residential schools. He talks to Rosemary Barton Live about what he hopes to get out of the meeting and what it means for him to make the trip. 9:21
Since then, the Roman Catholic Church has come under increasing pressure to do more – especially after the discovery last year of thousands of insignificant graves in former school settlements across the country. “They must be held accountable and held accountable for the great damage done by their immediate role in the assimilation and genocide they administered,” said Gerald Antoine, the Northwest Territories Regional Officer who heads the AFN delegation. Northwest Antoine leads the UN General Assembly delegation to the Vatican. (Olivia Stefanovic / CBC)
Antoine, a survivor of the school, said there were many things the pope could do to make amends. He said the AFN intended to call on the Pope to return ecclesiastical property to traditional Indigenous lands back to the Indigenous people, to provide long-term financial support to the survivors and to replace the Doctrine of the Discovery – a papal decree of 1493 used to justify .. .