Pope Francis’s apology evokes faint praise from Indigenous groups in U.S., Canada

The pontiff's historic apology on Monday also elicited faint praise from Indigenous groups in U.S. who experienced boarding-school injustice.

The “penitential pilgrimage” by Pope Francis to heal the relationship between Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the Catholic Church has been resonating in the United States, a country coming to terms with its own troubled history of residential schools.

The Pope’s Canadian visit earned prominent play on U.S. cable news channels, nightly network newscasts and newspaper front pages this week _ a striking display in a country that rarely casts its media gaze north of the border.

And much as it has already done in Canada, the pontiff’s historic apology on Monday also elicited faint praise from Indigenous groups, many of them newly empowered by government efforts to confront boarding-school injustice in the U.S.

“An apology must include steps forward that are both justice-seeking and that open pathways for healing,” said Deb Parker, chief executive of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Parker singled out the so-called Doctrine of Discovery, a series of 15th-century edicts and decrees by the Catholic Church that justified and encouraged Europe’s colonization of Indigenous lands in the Americas in the name of furthering Christianity.

“The time is now to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery,” she said. “Pope Francis was asked to do exactly this by the Indigenous delegation to the Vatican four months ago and has yet to respond.”

A personal apology from the Pope was number 58 in a list of 94 calls to action included in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a comprehensive, six-year examination of the tragic legacy of Canada’s residential school system.

“In the face of this deplorable evil, the church kneels before God and implores his forgiveness for the sins of her children,” Francis said Monday in Maskwacis, Alta., the centrepiece of a weeklong visit notable not only as a moment in history, but for its likely toll on the frail, 85-year-old pontiff.