Some 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly enlisted in schools, where they were cut off from their family, their language and their culture, and often victims of violence. At least 6,000 children died between the end of the 19th century and the 1990s.
Le Monde with AFP
Visit Monday July 25 in a former Aboriginal boarding school in Canada, Pope Francis, “afflicted”, asked “sorry for the evil committed” against them. The Church has “cooperated” with a project of “cultural destruction”, also said the Pope, who spoke of his “pain” and “remorse”.
The 85 -year -old sovereign pontiff arrived in Edmonton (Alberta) on Sunday for a six -day visit to the country, expected for years by these Amerindian peoples bringing together the First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit.
At the heart of this “penitential pilgrimage”, the painful chapter of “residential schools” for indigenous children, a system of cultural assimilation which left at least 6,000 dead between the end of 19 > century and the 1990s and created trauma on several generations.
The Canadian government, which paid billions of dollars in repair to former students, has officially apologized fourteen years ago for having created these schools set up to “kill the Indian in the heart of the child “. And the Anglican Church then did the same. But the Catholic Church, in charge of more than 60 % of these boarding schools, had always refused to do so so far.
“ideological colonization”
In April, everything changed with the apologies of Pope Francis who had, since the Vatican, castigated “ideological colonization” and “assimilation action” of which “so many children have been victims”. He had also promised to come to Canada, and thousands of natives awaited excuses on their land.
Many also hope for symbolic gestures, such as the repatriation of certain Aboriginal works of art preserved in the Vatican for decades.
Some 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly enlisted in these schools, where they were cut off from their family, their language and their culture, and often victims of physical, psychological and sexual violence.
Little by little, Canada opens its eyes to this past qualified today as “cultural genocide”: the discovery of more than 1,300 anonymous burials in 2021 near these boarding schools created a shock wave.