QUEBEC.- The canadian government clarified on Wednesday that Apology from Pope Francis to the indigenous peoples for the abuses in the boarding schools that the Church ran in the country are insufficient, and hinted that reconciliation around the painful history remains a work in progress.

The official reaction of the government has been published for the arrival of the pontiff in Quebec meet the prime minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Mary Simon at that city’s official residence, the hilltop fortress, the Citadel, during the second leg of the Pope’s weeklong visit to Canada.

Government criticisms echo those of some survivors and worry Francis’ refusal to refer to sexual abuse suffered by indigenous children in schools, as well as his initial reluctance to claim that the Catholic Church as an institution was responsible for what happened.

Francisco said he was doing a “penitential pilgrimage” to atone for the church’s role in the residential school system, in which generations of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and forced to attend these church and government funded institutions to assimilate them into society Canadian, the Christian religion. The Canadian government has said physical and sexual abuse is constant in schools., in which students were beaten for speaking their mother tongue.

The pope apologized on Monday for the “wrong” ecclesiastical personnel who worked in the schools and the “catastrophic” sequel of the school system in Aboriginal families. In a speech to government officials on Wednesday, Francis reiterated his apologies and censured the school system, calling it “deplorable”.

The pontiff noted that the system was “promoted by the government authorities of the time” as part of a policy of assimilation and emancipation. But in response to criticism, he added that “several local Catholic institutions were involved”.

Indigenous peoples have long demanded that the pope takes responsibility not only because of the abuses committed by certain Catholic priests and religious orders, but because of the institutional support of the Catholic Church for the policies of assimilation and the religious justification of the papacy in the fifteenth century for European colonial expansion to propagate Christianity.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children in Canada were removed from their homes from the 19th century to the 1970s and placed in schools in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their family and culture.

Trudeau, a Catholic whose father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister when the last residential schools were still operating, insisted that the Catholic Church, as an institution, is guilty and must do more to atone for it.

Speaking before Francis, Trudeau pointed out that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission had called in 2015 for the pope to apologize on Canadian soil and that Francis’ visit “would not have been possible without courage and perseverance.” . Metis, who visited the Vatican a few months ago to press for their apology request.

“I apologize for the role that the Catholic Church, as an institution, has played in the mistreatment, spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse that Indigenous children have suffered in boarding schools run by the Church,” Trudeau said.

The Canadian government has already apologized for its role in the schools’ legacy. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Parliament for residential schools, saying they were a sad chapter in Canadian history and noting that the policy of forced assimilation had caused great damage.

PA Agency

THE NATION