Consider This from NPR - In Canada, The Pope Delivers An Apology To Indigenous Peoples

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

This week, Pope Francis has been in Canada, on what he calls a "Pilgrimage of Penance". He's been going around the country to apologize for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's residential school system. These schools – funded by the Canadian government and administered by the Catholic Church – were aimed at erasing the culture and language of indigenous people. The apology from Pope Francis this week comes after years of allegations detailing abuse and neglect at these residential boarding schools. Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2008 to document what happened at these schools – and the lasting trauma that has followed. Stephanie Scott is a member of the Anishinaabe from Roseau River First Nation. She's executive director of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation – and has been part of a years-long effort to gather the testimony of survivors. She shares with us the mixed feelings about the Pope's apology, and the work that still has to be done towards reconciliation.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This week, the Pope went to Canada to deliver an apology. This moment has been years in the making. I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry. Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the indigenous peoples.

The federal residential schools were created in the 1800s and operated through the 1990s. Now, the Catholic Church ran the largest number of residential schools in Canada. These schools were funded by the Canadian government, but they were administered by the churches. And the goal of this program was to erase the culture and language of Indigenous people. On Monday, in Maskwacis, many gathered in traditional dress. There were songs and performances ahead of the Pope's remarks. Your Holiness, White Eagle, it's a great honor to welcome you among us. You have traveled a long way to be with us on our land.

Wilton Littlechild introduced the Pope. He's a former chief and a residential school survivor. My name in Cree is Ma'igan Moteo, Wolf Walker. Ego Aosaugeheu, Golden Eagle. In English, I am known as Wilton Littlechild. I was a student here at the Irminskin Indian Residential School, which for your visit among us this day represents all the residential schools in our country. Throughout the Pope's remarks, you could see tears and hear applause from the crowd. I have come to your native lands to tell you in person of my sorrow,

to implore God's forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation. I've waited 50 years for this apology, and finally today, I heard it. Evelyn Korkmas is a survivor of the residential school St. Anne's. Investigative reporting by the CBC shows that nuns there physically and sexually abuse children in their care. Korkma says she was filled with colliding emotions after listening to the Pope's speech. Part of me is rejoiced. Part of me is sad. Part of me is numb. But I am glad I lived long enough to have witnessed his apology. Other people have been wrestling with similar feelings. Ahead of the Pope's arrival in the First Nations Reserve south of Edmonton, Matt Wildcat and his father Brian said their community was receiving this visit with mixed

reactions. Some people think that to be somebody who heals, you have to forgive the church, and I don't think that's true. I think a lot of Indigenous people are healthy, resilient people who have a lot of anger towards the church still, right? But of course, some people feel that to achieve dignity in all of this situation requires an apology from the Pope, right? Which I think is the right thing for him to do, but that won't change anything. Randy Ermanskin is the chief of the Ermanskin First Nation, and he saw some hope in the visit.

This is an opportunity, the first and maybe last for some, to perhaps find some closure for themselves and their families. His brother was a survivor who didn't recover from his experience in residential school, and he killed himself at the age of 17. So he came home, but he didn't recover from his experience in residential school, and he killed himself at the age of 17. So he came home, but he didn't come home. Consider this. All this week, Pope Francis has been in Canada on what he calls a pilgrimage of penance. But for many survivors and their descendants, the work is not yet done. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

It's Friday, July 29th. It's Consider This from NPR. no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. It has been a significant moment, the Pope coming to Canada to apologize to residential school survivors, a moment that may not have ever happened if it were not for the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 2008, it was created as part of a court settlement to gather testimony from survivors and other evidence of the abuse and trauma inflicted at these residential schools. Stephanie Scott is a member of the Anishinaabe from Rosso River First Nation. She was on that commission and is now Executive Director

of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, which is entrusted with archiving the records collected by the commission. She spoke with me from Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty 1 territory, and started by telling me about a very important item that the National Center brought with them to the Popes for Marks, a National Student memorial register. And what that is, is it's a 50 meter long red cloth that holds the names of 4,120 children that died in residential school. And so it's a very powerful symbol of, you know, the harms that happened to the little ones that attended those schools and didn't return. The Pope, in the end, did up having a private witness. He blessed the cloth,

he kissed the cloth. And for the survivors and the NCTR staff and me, that was a moment to recognize that he actually had paid attention to all the children that had died in those schools. And for me, as a daughter of a residential school survivor, that's an opportunity and one step towards reconciliation. Do you feel that others felt similarly, like when they listened to his remarks, when they met with him? I mean, what are you hearing from your friends, other members of Indigenous communities, about how they personally received this apology? You know, I can appreciate the Pope's apology

as only a beginning of this journey and the journey towards reconciliation. I can tell you that we were there and we traveled there with about 20 survivors that were with us. It was a mixed reaction. Even though they had heard and witnessed his apology, they were very emotional about it. It was very heavy. We also traveled with one of our elders who's a survivor who was actually fathered by a priest in the residential school. So people weren't readily to accept. You know, he said many welcome things, but I was struck by what he didn't say. Really? Like what? What did you want him to say that he did not?

Well, I think it was really important that, you know, they acknowledge the harms that had been done, that they should have acknowledged the children that had died, that had suffered horrific physical and sexual abuse, and the fact that they were going to make reparations. And those are things in regard to returning land, you know, really supporting the healing. And sometimes that is financially because it's going to take a lot of resources to support community members on their path to healing. There's a lot of mental wellness that needs to take place in order to provide further truth and reconciliation. So I know that he was making a commitment in order to support that, but it really needs to have actions.

And he also needed to know not only that it was many Christians, but it would have been great to hear that it was the church and that he acknowledged the full church as an institution. You know, in the days that he acknowledged the role of the institution of the church played in perpetuating a cultural genocide. So that's really what the survivors that we were with were looking for. May I ask, as you've been working to document these stories from survivors, what has been the most challenging part of that work for you personally? For me personally, I'll tell you a little bit about my history

just so you can understand. I was born and raised here in Winnipeg, Manitoba. My mother is a residential school survivor. She was running away back and forth from the schools, became pregnant. You know, the school sent her home to her community. She was giving birth to me, went to the children's hospital. Back then, they were still automatically taking children away. So she held me once as a young mother at the age of 16 years old.

You know, and I was automatically put into the system, the child welfare system, because they deemed her that she could not raise me because that's what was happening to Indigenous children back then. So I didn't see her again until I was 28 years of age. So I am driven personally, professionally, in order to make this change, because I think as a young child, what that would mean to her, and it was devastating to her. lack of understanding, without the power of your people and, you know, the strength that comes from your community, your language, your ceremonies, your traditions. Is there a story that has stayed with you, a particular story? There is a story. And to me, it's one of power. And the story that stuck with me was we were out in Sioux Lookout. And there was a granny that came to me that was about 70 years of age and she sat down with me and she said that when she was a child they were about six and

seven years old her and her friend and they hated the schools they wanted to run away from the school because of the abuse and harms that they were suffering. And so these two little girls hid clothing outside of the school, in the bush, in order to run away from the school, in order to make it home. And they left the school one night, they put on those clothes, and they ran far away from the school and made it home. And I thought, you know, six and seven, those are the age of my grandchildren. And I thought how powerful they were in order to hide clothing in the dead of winter

to get home to their family that loved them because that's where they felt safe. The courage that it took. The courage that it took to do that and the intelligence of those young children. That's really what stuck with me. And I think that, you know, everyone that was trying to run away and made it home from those schools, more power to them because they were running for a reason. And those are the stories that we can't forget. Well, for people outside Canada,

can you talk about why gathering and archiving these records that you're collecting, this testimony, why it is so important? To have the personal survivor oral history and record in the archive paired with records, paired with community narratives, is essential to understanding the truth. And we still do not have the full truth of what happened in Canada to all those 150,000 children that attended the schools. You know, records were destroyed. We're losing our elders and survivors and knowledge keepers at a very fast pace. So we need to preserve their statement, the understanding from their perspective, what really happened. And they were children, like we can't forget those were children that were in those schools. And many of them died. And we've got evidence and documentation of, you know, children as young as three years old being in those schools

taken away from their families. You know, understanding the illness, the malnutrition, the experiments, it's all important to preserving the truth of residential schools so that in the hopes that it can never happen again, no matter where I was in this country, and when we were, you know, working with survivors in order to share their statements, they said, I'm telling you this because I never want this to happen again. I don't want this to happen to my family, to my grandchildren, or any other person that lives here in Canada. And that's really why they stood up and shared their statements. And so we've got, you know, decades of work to do and we have to preserve and continue to preserve those that are alive with us.

And we are embarking on more statement gathering across the country this fall because when the missing children unmarked burials happened, again, you know, there was this resurgence of people that wanted to acknowledge and share the hurt and harm that they had experienced. And we're here to do that work for them. And we'll continue to do it.

And I'll continue to do it until I can no longer, you know, preserve that experience. That was Stephanie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation. Earlier in the episode, you heard reporting from Emma Jacobs. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.