Montreal-area Indigenous residents weigh in on Pope’s visit and residential school apology

Kahnawá:ke resident Arnold Boyer said even though the Pope spoke Spanish when he met his mom and dad, they understood each other when the three held hands.

Kahnawá:ke resident Arnold Boyer says he’s less emotional now than he was a week ago, and less angry.

“You can’t hold it inside you forever, you know. It’s going to kill you,” he told Global News sitting outside his office at the Mohawk Council of Kahnawá:ke on Montreal’s South Shore.

The council chief brought his parents, both residential school survivors, to see Pope Francis hold mass at the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré shrine near Quebec City on Thursday to hear an apology.

“And that’s what they received, and they were happy,” he said.

On top of that, his parents were among the 22 survivors who had a private meeting with the pontiff the following morning, at which the Pope again expressed regret for the atrocities that staff at Catholic-run residential schools, committed against Indigenous Peoples.

Boyer said even though the head of the Roman Catholic Church spoke Spanish when he met his mom and dad, they understood each other when the three held hands.

“A touch, and to look at a person in their eyes, you know, it says a lot of things that words cannot say to a person,” Boyer said.

The Pope’s visit and apology have not brought closure to everyone. Boyer acknowledges that and says healing is complicated.