Pope Francis apologizes for forced assimilation of Indigenous children at residential schools

‘I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples’
Pope Francis has apologized to members of the Catholic Church who co-operated with Canada’s “devastating” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed their families, and marginalized generations in ways still being felt today.
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis told thousands of Indigenous people, including many survivors, who converged Monday in Maskwacis, Alta.
“Here from this place, associated with painful memories, I would like to begin what I consider a pilgrimage. A penitential pilgrimage,” he said, speaking from the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, one of the largest in Canada.
To applause from those gathered, the Pope repeatedly begged forgiveness for actions of the past, supported by many members of the Church, which created the “disastrous error” and “deplorable evil” of residential schools. He said the memories of the children who never returned from residential schools have left him with a sense of “sorrow, indignation, and shame.”
The policies of assimilation marginalized Indigenous people robbed them of their language and culture, and indelibly affected relationships between parents and their children and grandparents and their grandchildren, he said.
Source: cbc.ca/news