The pope ended his six-day trip to Canada on Friday, July 29, as he had begun: with an apology for the harm done to the country’s natives. He again expressed his “indignation and shame” in front of the Inuit in the Arctic. For the last stage of his journey, the 85-year-old pontiff traveled to Iqaluit, capital of Nunavut, in the Canadian Far North, where he was welcomed to the sound of Inuit throat singing, in the middle of colorful houses. .
In this small town accessible only by air and where just over 7,000 people live, mainly indigenous people, the pope spoke of the “great suffering” of those forcibly placed in boarding schools aimed at “kill the Indian in the child’s heart”.
“Families have been broken up, children taken away from their environment; winter has descended on everything”he lamented in front of the crowd gathered between the school and the basketball court a few meters from the cliffs and the sea. Many of them held hands or hugged each other while listening to him speak.
Questioned on the plane that brought him back to Rome on Saturday July 30, Pope Francis admitted that this tragedy is comparable to genocide. “I didn’t say the word [durant le voyage] because it didn’t occur to me, but I described the genocide. And I apologized, asked for forgiveness for this process which is a genocide”did he declare. “Yes, genocide is a technical word. I didn’t use it because it didn’t come to mind. But I described what, it is true, is genocide”he insisted.
150,000 people enlisted by force
In this part of the world that is heating up three times faster than the rest of the planet, he also called for ” to take care “ of the earth, which “is as delicate as every person and people”.
Earlier, the pope had talked for a long time with former residents of residential schools for natives who had the ” courage “ to share their “great suffering”.
Between the end of the XIXe century and the 1990s, some 150,000 Inuit, Métis or First Nations people were forcibly recruited into more than 130 of these institutions, cut off from their families, their language and their culture. Many suffered physical or sexual abuse, and thousands never recovered, victims of disease, malnutrition or neglect.
“This visit is important because many people here went to boarding school”says Evie Kunuk, 47, dressed in a traditional white outfit. “Once they hear the pope say ‘I’m sorry,’ it will open doors for some people”adds this woman with gray and short hair.
The case of Father Rivoire not mentioned in his speech
But many natives say there is still a long way to go and this is only the first step in a long process of healing. In Iqaluit, many were also waiting for precise answers from the pope about Father Joannes Rivoire, who for many has become a symbol of the impunity of sexual aggressors protected by the Church. A case that the pope did not mention in his speech.
This French priest, who spent three decades in the Canadian Far North, is the subject of an arrest warrant but he has so far never been worried. He left Canada in 1993 and lives in France, in Lyon.
For Kilikvak Kabloona, president of the Nunavut Tunngavik organization, which represents the Inuit of Nunavut, “the pope’s apologies were not complete”. “They failed to take sexual abuse into account and failed to recognize the institutional role of the Catholic Church in protecting abusers, this protection allows sexual violence to thrive”she believes.
“We would like Rivoire to be extradited to Canada to face his charges in court and we have asked the Pope to intervene to ask him to return to Canada”, she adds again. An Inuit delegation has also planned to go to France in September.
The spiritual leader of the 1.3 billion Catholics, who traveled to western Canada and then to Quebec on this trip, uses a wheelchair due to pain in his right knee.