Papal meeting aims to strengthen relationships with Indigenous people of Canada
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
It's an opportunity only a select group of Indigenous people are getting: to meet with the head of the Catholic Church and share their culture, but also their experiences of the legacy left behind by the Indian Residential School system.
That Church-run system took over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children from their families over a span of 150 years with the first school opening in 1831.
Adeline Webber, a member of the Teslin Tlingit First Nation in the Yukon was one of those children. She and her eight siblings were sent to residential schools in the Yukon, and as far away as Alberta.
"So, you know, we didn't have much of a relationship with my siblings."
One of her brothers, who was sent to the Choutla Residential School in Carcross, Yukon, never made it home.
"When he was about six, he died in the residential school…we found out that he had measles and he's buried over there, in Carcross."
She cradles a pair of baby-sized caribou-hide beaded moccasins as she talks about him.
"But we don't know where his grave is, and my mother never ever knew where that was. So, you know, that was a really difficult thing for her, myself and my sisters."
Webber is in Rome as part of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) delegation.
She's a member of the Teslin Tlingit Council, a self-governing First Nation in Yukon.
Webber said she is bringing those moccasins with her, to give her strength.
"My mother made these many years ago and my three children wore them… and I just thought if I take this, you know, that it'll comfort me. So I'll just keep it with me."
Delegates representing the AFN, the Métis National Council and Canadian Inuit, have been crafting their message to the Pope for months since being invited by The Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops.
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