|
The
pope made the comment while flying back to Rome after a
week-long trip to Canada, where he delivered a historic apology
for the Church's role in the policy.
He was asked by an indigenous Canadian reporter on the plane why
he did not use the word genocide during the trip, and if he
would accept that members of the Church participated in
genocide.
"It's true that I did not use the word because I didn't think of
it. But I described genocide. I apologised, I asked forgiveness
for this activity, which was genocide," Francis said.
"I condemned this, taking children away and trying to change
their culture, their minds, change their traditions, a race, an
entire culture," the pope added.
Between 1881 and 1996 more than 150,000 indigenous children were
separated from their families and brought to residential
schools. Many children were starved, beaten and sexually abused
in a system that Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
called "cultural genocide".
The schools were run for the governments by religious groups,
most of them Catholic priests and nuns.
"Yes, genocide is a technical word but I did not use it because
I did not think of it, but I described .... yes, it is a
genocide, yes, yes, clearly. You can say that I said it was a
genocide," he said.
Last Monday, Francis visited the town of Maskwacis, site of two
former residential schools, where he apologized and called
forced assimilation "evil" and a "disastrous error".
He also apologised for Christian support of the "colonizing
mentality" of the times.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Frances Kerry)
[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
