minister and his first indigenous governor general. It's part of
his week long tour of Canada, where he is apologizing for the Catholic
Church's role in running residential schools very similar to ones
across the United States that tried to erotic eight native cultures.
While the pope's apology was welcomed as William Branham reports,
indigenous leaders and former students say it is only the first step
toward healing a painful past.
Hey.
Where the Catholic Church once exploited and denigrated indigenous
culture. Indigenous leaders this week offered the pope a symbol of
that culture. Survivors of Canada's Catholic boarding schools now
grown and Gray carried a red cloth with the names of more than 4000
indigenous students who died or disappeared from those places.
In the native musk watches community. The Roman Catholic leader issued
a historical apology
hockey I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage
among you is that of again asking forgiveness for the ways in which
many members of the church cooperated in projects of cultural destruction.
Which culminated in a system of residential schools. Survivors of
those schools shared some of the lingering impacts they've endured.
I went to the residential schools or post and I went through a lot
of
Lost all my family.
We've been pressing
For
Full apology.
For years and years. Fontaine is a Canadian indigenous leader who,
starting at the age of six spent 10 years in the residential school
system. Back in the early nineties on Canadian TV. Fontaine was one
of the very first to publicly described the abuse he suffered If
we took an example of my grade three class if there were 20 boys
In this particular class.
Every single one and of the 20 would have experienced what I experienced.
But are you saying every one of 20 was sexually abused?
They've experienced some aspect of sexual abuse.
From the 18 eighties through much of the 20th century, more than
150,000 indigenous Children across the country were forcibly taken
from their parents and sent to these so called residential schools
are languages.
I entered speaking
Only with Midway When I my first day of residential school, I understood
a bit of English You learned
Through the people that ran the schools to consider yourself inferior.
The non industrious people, white people.
That we aren't as good
Fortunately, in my case I've had
Many, many opportunities to expand.
My my education, unlearn some of those lessons that were pressed
into very young. You absolutely to learn that I wasn't We recalled
some so often.
Survive.
It takes a lifetime in some situations to unlearn all of that.
Nonsense because that's what it is. Imagine if all your Children
were taken
Little Children being abused crimes against Children. It's horrendous.
It's things we wanna forget.
Heather Bear is vice chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous
First Nations, which represents 74 1st nations in the province of
Saskatchewan. She attended this residential school in the 19 seventies,
when they started transitioning from the church to indigenous control.
Expect some accountability.
Uh, and that's what the apology means. So it gives me relief that
to know that we've gone this step of an apology. No. What's the next
step treatment of Children in Indian residential schools?
Is a sad chapter in our history
People. Apology have been long and painful. In 2008, then Prime Minister
Stephen Harper on behalf of the Canadian government formally apologized
to former indigenous students and established a Truth and Reconciliation
commission. It documented the experiences of more than 6000 Children
in 2015. The commission concluded that quote
Children were abused physically and sexually, and they died in the
schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school
system anywhere in the country or in the world. Over the last year
across various school sites, archaeologists have discovered hundreds
of unmarked graves, prompting calls for an investigation
by who is buried where
We all need to access records.
And the Catholic Church kept meticulous records.
The Catholic Church ran about 60% of the schools, but for decades
it resisted calls that it apologize. Fontaine himself met with Pope
Benedict in 2009.
But it wasn't until this year. At another meeting that Pope Francis
apologized and pledged to do it again in Canada. Does it frustrate
you that it is taken so many years for this to happen?
Persistence.
It's so important.
Um
You just can't give up. They need to do a lot of, uh, thinking and
planning on how you know they're going to make amends and fix some
of that harm
says while they will never forget, they must learn to forgive, and
there isn't anything more.
Powerful
Uh, in terms of symbolism.
Then to be able to say I forgive you.
But for many, those whose emotional wounds persist to this day, even
as the pope asks for forgiveness, that forgiveness does not come