Pope Francis apologised from Canadian people for persecution of residential schools in Canada.
After a visit to the former site of Ermineskin Indian Residential School in Maskwacis, in the western province of Alberta on Monday, Pope Francis said he came to Canada “to tell you in person of my sorrow [and] to implore God’s forgiveness, healing and reconciliation”.
“I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry,” Pope Francis said at a ceremony wherein Indigenous leaders, residential school survivors, elders and others participated in Canada.
“What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous bad deed incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said, describing the effects of residential schools as “catastrophic”.
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples.”
