CANADA
Toronto Star
Published on Mon Jun 08 2015
Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, now a saint, have apologized in the past 25 years for all manner of wrongs done in the name of the Catholic Church over the centuries.
Those sins include clerical sex abuse of children in the United States, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere. Historical persecution of Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Protestants, Jews, Roma and others. Abuse of women. The cowardice some Christians showed during the Nazi Holocaust. The slave trade. Missionary abuses of indigenous peoples. And the condemnation of Galileo, who challenged the false idea that the Earth is the centre of the universe.
These apologies didn’t always live up to the hopes of those who were wronged. But they were an expression of official contrition that went some way toward acknowledging the Church’s human frailty, healing the hurt, and setting the historical record right.
Canada’s 80,000 aboriginal survivors of the church-run residential school system deserve no less. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper should seek a papal apology on their behalf when he meets Pope Francis on Thursday. Some 150,000 children were ripped from their families in a racist attempt to “kill the Indian in the child” that was abetted by Catholic and other Christian clergy, and 6,000 died in the schools. Many were abused emotionally, physically and sexually. It was a dark chapter in our history.
The Anglican Church in Canada has long since apologized. Back in 1993 then-primate Archbishop Michael Peers declared “I am sorry, more than I can say.” Others involved with the schools, including the United Church, Presbyterians and Jesuits have similarly expressed sorrow and regret.
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