EDMONTON, Alberta (Dispatches) -- Pope Francis landed in Canada to kick off a week-long trip that will center around his apology on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for the abuse that indigenous children endured at mostly church-run residential schools.
“This is a trip of penance. Let’s say that is its spirit,” the pope told reporters after his flight took off from Rome.
The papal plane touched down in Edmonton in the western province of Alberta, where he was to visit a former residential school and meet with indigenous peoples on Monday. He was also about to visit Quebec City and Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut. He will depart on Friday.
Between 1881 and 1996 more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and brought to residential schools. Many children were starved, beaten and sexually abused in a system that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”
While Canada’s leaders have known about high numbers of children dying at the residential schools since 1907, the issue was thrust to the fore with the discovery of suspected unmarked graves at or near former residential school sites last year.
In response to pressure stemming from those discoveries, the pope apologized for the Catholic church’s role in the schools earlier this year during a visit by indigenous delegates to the Vatican.
Now he is preparing to apologize on Canadian soil. But survivors and indigenous leaders have told Reuters they want more.
Many have called for financial compensation, the return of indigenous artifacts, the release of school records, support for extraditing an accused abuser, and the rescinding of a 15th-century doctrine justifying colonial dispossession of indigenous people in the form of a papal bull, or edict.
First Nations leaders also expressed their dissatisfaction over the arrangements of the trip, saying they felt left out.
“They have not been really including us in the proper planning of this process. It’s been very unilateral and we don’t feel that it has been about survivors,” of residential schools, she said. “It has been more about the Church.”
Victoria Arcand, an elder from Alexander First Nation, said the visit was long overdue.
“I think this visit is kind of long overdue. Maybe it’s something that should have happened many, many years ago. Maybe the start of reconciliation would have started then,” she said.