Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors are in Rome for meetings with Pope Francis this week, hoping to secure a papal apology for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential school system.
CTV National News is reporting from Rome and will be providing on-the-ground coverage of the talks through daily digital updates.
A total of 32 delegates representing the First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities have travelled to Rome alongside family members and others providing support. These meetings had originally been scheduled to take place in December, but the spike in COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant pushed back the meetings three months.
In addition to a public apology from the Pope on Canadian soil, the delegates are calling on the Church to return Indigenous artifacts and land, as well as provide funding to help survivors and their families heal.
This visit to the Vatican comes after nearly 2,000 confirmed or suspected unmarked graves were found across several former residential school sites since last May, when 200 unmarked graves were found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
More than 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families to attend residential schools from the late 1800s to 1996, with the goal of forcibly assimilating them to Canadian culture. Over half of these schools were operated by the Catholic Church.
There were widespread reports of physical, mental and sexual abuse at these schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in 2015xjmtzyw that at least one in every 50 students had died.
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President of the Metis community, Cassidy Caron, second from left, and other delegates arrive to speak to the media in St. Peter’s Square after their meeting with Pope Francis at The Vatican, Monday, March 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
