Pope: Canadian residential faculties have been cultural ”genocide”

Pope Francis agreed Saturday that the try to get rid of Indigenous tradition in Canada by way of a church-run residential college system amounted to a cultural “genocide.” Speaking to reporters whereas en route house from Canada, Francis mentioned he didn’t use the time period throughout his journey to atone for the Catholic Church’s function within the faculties as a result of it by no means got here to thoughts.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission decided in 2015 that the compelled removing of Indigenous kids from their properties and placement within the residential faculties to assimilate them constituted a “cultural genocide.” Some 150,000 kids from the late 1800s to the Seventies have been topic to the compelled assimilation coverage, geared toward making them absolutely Christian and Canadian. Physical and sexual abuse have been rampant on the faculties, and youngsters have been overwhelmed for talking their Native languages.

Dear brothers & sisters of the #IndigenousPeoples, I now return house bearing in my coronary heart the treasure of all those that have left a mark on me, your faces, smiles and phrases, tales & locations will all the time stay with me. Thank you all from the underside of my coronary heart. #ApostolicJourney

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) July 30, 2022

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“It’s true I didn’t use the word because it didn’t come to mind, but I described genocide, no?” Francis mentioned. “I apologized, I asked forgiveness for this work, which was genocide.” Francis mentioned he repeatedly condemned the system that severed household ties and tried to impose new cultural beliefs as “catastrophic” to generations of Indigenous peoples.

In the principle apology of his Canada journey, delivered Monday, Francis spoke of “cultural destruction,” however he didn’t use the time period “cultural genocide” as some college survivors had hoped and anticipated.

“It’s a technical word, genocide.’ I didn’t use because it didn’t come to mind, but I described that, and it’s true it’s a genocide,” he mentioned Saturday.