IQALUIT, Nunavut (CNS) — At the end of his six-day visit to Canada, Pope Francis, sitting in a wheelchair, said goodbye to Chief Wilton Littlechild, also sitting in a wheelchair.
Littlechild, a 78-year-old lawyer, a survivor of abuse in a residential school and former grand chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, had spent decades advocating for the rights of First Nation, Métis and Inuit people and had lobbied hard for Pope Francis to come to Canada to apologize in person for the Catholic Church’s complicity in abusing children, breaking up families and suppressing Indigenous language and culture.
The chief had welcomed Pope Francis to his home — Maskwacis — on July 25, the first full day of the trip, and created some controversy by giving the pope his late grandfather’s headdress. He told Canada’s Native News Online that the Ermineskin Cree Nation had decided as a community that the headdress was an appropriate way to thank the pope for visiting their town and making his first apology on Canadian soil there.“I am sorry,” the pope said at the Muskwa, or Bear Park, Powwow Grounds.
An Indigenous dancer performs as Pope Francis meets with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities at Maskwacis, Alberta, July 25, 2022. (CNS photo/Guglielmo Mangiapane, Reuters)
Pope Francis greets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, governor general of Canada, at Citadelle de Quebec, the residence of the governor general in Quebec City, July 27, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Pope Francis attends a welcoming ceremony with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, governor general, at Citadelle de Quebec, the residence of the governor general of Canada, in Quebec City July 27, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives to celebrate Mass at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec July 28, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Pope Francis celebrates Mass at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec July 28, 2022. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Francis blesses a person after celebrating Mass at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec July 28, 2022. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Francis delivers the homily as he leads vespers in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Quebec July 28, 2022. Seated at right is Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli, master of papal liturgical ceremonies. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
People wait for the start of Pope Francis' meeting with young people and elders outside the primary school in Iqaluit, Nunavut, July 29, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Pope Francis and Chief Wilton Littlechild say farewell to each other July 29, 2022, in Iqaluit, Nunavut, as the pope prepares to return to the Vatican after a six-day visit. Littlechild, a 78-year-old lawyer, survivor of abuse in a residential school and former grand chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, had lobbied hard for the pope to visit Canada and apologize to residential school survivors. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the Church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools,” the pope said.
The Canadian government has estimated that at least 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and Métis children were taken from their families and communities and forced to attend the schools between 1870 and 1997. At least 4,120 children died at the schools, and several thousand others vanished without a trace.
The survivors tell stories of enduring hunger, brutality and emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the schools, about 60% of which were run by Catholic religious orders and other Catholic institutions.
The survivors tell stories of enduring hunger, brutality and emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the schools, about 60% of which were run by Catholic religious orders and other Catholic institutions.
An almost constant drumbeat accompanied Pope Francis on his trip — to Edmonton, Maskwacis and Lac Ste. Anne in Alberta, to Quebec City and nearby Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and, finally, to Iqaluit in the Canadian Arctic.
