Calls for Pope to apologise for the unmarked graves of thousands of indigenous children in Roman Catholic Schools of Canada
|
|
Toronto (Canada) – Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has appealed Pope Francis, the Supreme Priest of Christians, to visit Canada and apologise to the people for the death of thousands of indigenous children in the schools run by the Roman Catholic Church in the last century.
Justin Trudeau says Pope Francis should apologize on Canadian soil for church's role in residential schools https://t.co/5DSsslYB1X
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 28, 2021
1. Trudeau further said, ‘From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools, most run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society. This official Canadian policy alienated thousands of children from their own culture and language. The Canadian Government is horrified and ashamed of how our country behaved’. (In India, however, studying in these ‘convent’ schools is considered prestigious. These schools blatantly forbid Hindu girls from applying Bindi, wearing bangles, and Hindu boys from applying Kumkum on their foreheads, thereby alienating children from their rich culture and heritage ! Therefore, the Government of India should also take a firm stand on such convent schools. – Editor)
2. Indigenous leaders have called the residential schools a system of ‘cultural genocide’. They said that 600 or more remains were discovered at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899 to 1997 in the province of Saskatchewan. Last month, some 215 remains were reported at a similar school in British Columbia.
3. A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued a report in 2015 that identified about 3,200 confirmed deaths at schools, but noted the schools did not record the cause of death in almost half of them. Many died of tuberculosis, an illness symptomatic of the deplorable living conditions.
4. In the United States, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced this week that the federal Government is launching an investigation into its past oversight of Native American boarding schools there. She said it will review records to identify past schools, locate burial sites and uncover the names and tribal affiliations of students.
Atrocities committed by the Boarding schools run by Roman Catholic Church in Canada
The Government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse of indigenous children was rampant in these schools run by the Roman Catholic Church. Students were beaten for speaking their native languages. Thousands of children died of disease and other causes, many never returned to their families. Children’s dead bodies were buried in the school premises.