Pope Francis issued an apology to the indigenous people of Canada on Monday, asking forgiveness for the “evil committed by so many Christians” following international uproar over the treatment of indigenous children at residential Christian schools.
“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,” Francis said, according to the Washington Post.
Residential schools, which assimilated and Christianized indigenous children, were ran partly by the Catholic Church in the 19th and 20th centuries.
“It is painful to think of how the firm soil of values, language and culture that made up the authentic identity of your peoples was eroded, and that you have continued to pay the price of this,” Francis added.
Francis has been criticized for not speaking out more against human-rights abuses and religious persecution in China, where millions of Uyghur Muslims are being detained and indoctrinated.
Francis’ trip follows reports which surfaced last year indicating mass graves of Indigenous children had been unearthed in Canada. Dozens of Catholic Churches were consequently vandalized across Canada.
Some of the alleged graves were “already-known cemeteries,” accounted for in a 2015 Truth and Reconciliation report, while others have not been verified as mass grave sites, according to the National Post.
Indigenous Canadians have cast doubt on the validity of the mass graves, saying they had knowledge of their existence before the media cast light on them.
“We’ve always known these were there.… It’s just the fact that the media picked up on unmarked graves, and the story actually created itself from there because that’s how it happens,” Cowessess elder Lloyd Lerat said, according to the National Post.
Lerat had been a former student at residential school Marieval, where an alleged burial site with 751 graves was found. Marieval received international coverage and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau visited the site and kneeled with a teddy bear.
“This is a Roman Catholic grave site. It’s not a residential school grave site,” Cowesses Chief Cadmus Delorme said, according to the outlet, noting that no new graves had been discovered.
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation listed nine students who had been buried in the cemetery for the century it was open, according to the outlet.