Pope Francis on Friday assailed the Catholic missionaries who “supported oppressive and unjust policies” against Indigenous peoples and vowed to pursue truth and healing as he wrapped up his pilgrimage to Canada by meeting with Native delegations and visiting Inuit territory in far-north Nunavut.
Francis welcomed residential school survivors from eastern Canada to the archbishop's residence in Quebec City to reiterate his apology for the abuses they suffered in Canada’s residential school system. From the late 1800s to the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in church-run boarding schools to sever them from their cultures and assimilate them into Christian, Canadian society.
