When an Assembly of First Nations delegation traveled to the Vatican in 2009 to meet with then-Pope Benedict XVI, the pontiff told them in a private meeting of his “personal anguish” over abuse suffered by Indigenous children in church-run boarding schools they were forced to attend in Canada.
What at the time was called an expression of deep, heartfelt regret is no longer seen as sufficient after last year’s discovery in British Columbia of about 200 unmarked and previously undocumented graves of children at what was Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of numerous, similar grim sites across the country.
