JULY 27, 2022:
LAC SAINTE ANNE, Alberta (AP) — Pope Francis is praying in Canada for healing from the “terrible effects of colonization.” He offered the prayer as he led a pilgrimage to a Canadian lake that has been known to Native peoples for centuries as a sacred place of healing. It follow on his apology the previous day for the “catastrophic” effects of Canada’s residential schools on Indigenous families. Tuesday’s service at Lac Sainte Anne in Alberta fell on the Feast of St. Anne, Jesus’ grandmother. Francis said “part of the painful legacy we are now confronting stems from the fact that indigenous grandmothers were prevented from passing on the faith in their own language and culture.”
JULY 26, 2022:
MASKWACIS, Alberta (AP) — Pope Francis has apologized for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools. The pontiff says the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed their families and marginalized generations in ways still being felt today. Francis spoke Monday (July 25, 2022) near the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, on lands of four Cree nations south of Edmonton, Alberta. He said, “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples.” The long-awaited apology opens Francis’ weeklong “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, which is meant to help the church on its path of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and help victims heal.
JULY 22, 2022:
MASKWACIS, Alberta (AP) — Indigenous Canadians are voicing a range of skepticism, wariness and hope as Pope Francis prepares to arrive in their country next week. He’s scheduled to deliver a historic apology for abuses at Catholic-run residential schools. Generations of Indigenous children were sent to the schools in a system designed to sever them from their tribal families and traditions. Thousands died from disease, fire and other causes at Catholic and Protestant-run schools. Francis apologized in April 2022 to a Canadian Indigenous delegation at the Vatican for the “deplorable conduct” at the schools. Now he’ll be apologizing on Canadian soil at the site of a former residential school.
JULY 21, 2022:
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Restitution of Indigenous and colonial-era artifacts is one of the many agenda items awaiting Pope Francis on his trip to Canada which begins Sunday (July 24, 2022). The visit is aimed primarily at allowing the pope to apologize in person on Canadian soil for abuses Indigenous people and their ancestors suffered at the hands of Catholic missionaries in notorious residential schools. But Indigenous groups from Canada who visited the Vatican Museums’ Anima Mundi Ethnological Collection this spring say they saw some items there that they want returned. It’s a debate facing museums across Europe about what to do with their colonial and Indigenous collections.
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