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What then about the pope? In 2009, after years of sincere dialogue between Catholic bishops in Canada and Indigenous representatives, Pope Benedict XVI received a delegation at the Vatican. It was led by Phil Fontaine, then-national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. It was a historic moment of contrition, sorrow, reconciliation and healing. Fontaine’s address on that occasion is one of the most poignant and illuminating on the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Indigenous peoples of Canada.
At the time, it was considered the “final piece” of a nearly 20-year process of reconciliation that “closed the book,” in the words of Fontaine. So all the parties were confident that a good measure of healing had taken place: apologies were offered, and apologies were accepted.
in fact this specific school:
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The various religious orders that ran the schools also issued apologies. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which ran the Kamloops Indian Residential School, included this in their detailed four-page apology, which was issued in 1991:
“We apologize for the part we played in the cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious imperialism that was part of the mentality with which the peoples of Europe first met the Aboriginal peoples and which consistently has lurked behind the way the Native peoples of Canada have been treated by civil governments and by the churches.”
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Then there are religious orders, like the Oblates and the Jesuits — who also issued an apology to Indigenous peoples in 1991 — which are not territorial. All of the dioceses that had residential schools and the religious orders involved apologized decades ago, and those expressions have been renewed in recent days.