The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, admitted that the request for forgiveness had “a huge impact” among the indigenous representatives who received it. However, he added that it could only be “starting point, a first step”.
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At the request of Raymond Gros-Louis, “eldest” of the Huronne-Wendat nation, Pope Francis, the Cardinals and the bishops of his suite, just like the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and the Governor General From Canada, Mary Simon, put a hand on their hearts for a reception ceremonial. Then, as tradition dictates, this First Nations representative turned on a “sacred fire” in order to “make the link” with the four directions and the “four vital elements”. He blew in a whistle and asked “the western grandmother to have access to the large sacred circle”. Thus started the meeting of Pope Francis with the Canadian authorities, Wednesday, July 27, at the Citadel of Quebec, on the third day of the visit of the Catholic Church in the country.
The face-to-face was promising. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister promoting liberal values and a company protecting minority rights, officially welcomed the Pope, head of a Catholic Church opposed to many points (procreative rights, marriage of people of the same sex) to developments in recent decades in Western societies. On the other hand, as early as 2017, the Canadian Prime Minister had gone to see François to the Vatican to ask him to come to his country to apologize to the Catholic Church to the Aboriginal people for the ill -treatment inflicted on some 150,000 of their children in boarding school that she administered, in accordance with what asked, in 2015, the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Until the arrival in Rome of a delegation of natives, at the end of March, the Pope had refused.
But Monday and Tuesday, the Argentinian pontiff met and asked for forgiveness, in the province of Alberta, to Aboriginal components (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) of the country who had to suffer from the residential system where were interned Force of the children that we wanted to cut from their indigenous families and their culture to assimilate them to the majority society. The multiple ill -treatment they were in mound – and more than 6,000 died – left family trauma still lively today in these communities.
“Deplorable system”
Between the governing and the religious leader, the cordial exchange did not prevent some spikes. Justin Trudeau acknowledged that the request for forgiveness made by François Monday had “a huge impact” among the indigenous representatives who received it. However, he added that it could only be “starting point, a first step” and that concrete actions had to follow. Mary Simon abounded in this sense: “We are looking forward to knowing the actions that will be taken by the Church to continue this essential work” of reconciliation, she said. Mr. Trudeau also suggested that he would have preferred that the apologies relate to “the role that the Roman Catholic Church, as an institution, played”, while the Pope spoke on Monday of the actions committed by “many members of the Church and religious communities “, without engaging the whole institution.
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