Aboriginal Issues

TORONTO — While Pope Francis may visit Canada amid calls for him to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in residential schools, Indigenous leaders say his visit must be “more than a gesture” in order to have an impact on reconciliation.

The Vatican said in a statement Wednesday that Pope Francis is willing to visit Canada, after the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops invited him in the “context of the long-standing pastoral process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”

The statement said the Pope indicated his “willingness” to do so at an undetermined date.

… The pilgrimage could be the occasion for a papal apology that has been demanded by many in Canada.

Given the time usually required to organize an overseas papal visit, it appeared unlikely such a pilgrimage could happen this year.

The history of humanity is a horrifying tale, filled with every evil one could possibly imagine. Most of human history is poverty, tyranny, and violence — centuries of unbelievable suffering. Today is the rare exception.

For whatever reason, humans have always had the innate thirst to conquer one another. This has been the case for all civilizations throughout history. But today’s leftists want to revise history to fit their agenda. They act as if history began in 1492 and focus solely on incidents in which white people are portrayed as aggressors. They constantly reference slavery but ignore the fact that black people owned slaves in the United States or that the slave trade began in Africa. It’s why you were never taught about the many instances in history in which people of color massacred each other.

No one in the federal government is saying who made the final decision to relieve the Catholic Church of its financial responsibilities to residential school survivors.

But a source with direct knowledge of the controversial 2015 case told CBC News that then-minister of justice Jody Wilson-Raybould wasn’t consulted, even though a lawyer in her department signed the final release.

“This is stunning. It’s just unbelievable that the first Indigenous minister of justice was frozen out of a decision like this,” said Tom McMahon, a former general legal counsel for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission who also spent 17 years as a lawyer in the Department of Justice.

A federal court in Canada has paved they way for billions in compensation to First Nations children who suffered discrimination in the welfare system, after a judge dismissed a pair of legal challenges by the government.

Two years ago, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the federal government had “wilfully and recklessly” discriminated against Indigenous children living on reserves by failing to properly fund child and family services.

The tribunal ruled the federal government was required to pay compensation worth C$40,000 to each child removed from his or her home – the maximum allowable under the country’s human rights act.

I feel so reconciled.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has issued a public apology to Indigenous people in Canada for the suffering endured at residential schools, but the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) says the church needs to follow up with “concrete actions.”

Addressing the “Indigenous peoples of this land,” the bishops issued a statement today saying that they “acknowledge the suffering experienced in Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.”

“Many Catholic religious communities and dioceses participated in this system, which led to the suppression of Indigenous languages, culture and spirituality, failing to respect the rich history, traditions and wisdom of Indigenous peoples,” the statement said.

Dammit these apologies are gettin in the way of our genocidin.