The chief of the B.C. First Nation where the unmarked graves of 215 children were discovered at a former residential school site last May is hoping an apology and promise to release key documents will be the result of the Pope‘s upcoming visit to Canada.
“Our hope is that he does come to Kamloops,” Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kúkpi7 Rosanne Casimir told Global News.
“That he does listen to our elders and our survivors. And, you know, some of the intergenerational trauma that has impacted so many of us, to hear those stories and those truths as well. And to come to a meaningful apology.”
On Wednesday, the Vatican said Pope Francis would travel to Canada at a yet to be determined date “in the context of the long-standing pastoral process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”
The announcement comes amid a national reckoning over the legacy of Canada’s residential schools, institutions designed by the federal government and operated by religious groups including the Catholic church to assimilate Indigenous children.
Many of those children suffered serious physical and sexual abuse, and since the revelation of the graves at the Tk’emlúps school, a total of 1,300 suspected graves have been discovered nationwide.
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A papal apology for the church’s role in residential schools is among the 94 calls to action laid out in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report in 2015 as a road map to reconciliation.
Casimir has been vocal in her call for an apology and said she was shocked the Pope had yet to commit to one on his planned trip to Canada. The First Nation has invited Pope Francis to visit their community when he arrives in Canada.
She and a delegation of Indigenous leaders are scheduled to travel to the Vatican in December to meet with the Pope, where she said they will raise the apology issue.
“It would be about acknowledging those truths and having a clear understanding of what those truths are by hearing them,” she said of the lasting traumas residential school survivors and their children continue to grapple with.
“He’s made apologies throughout the world, but not in Canada yet. And so I think it would be something that would be a meaningful step moving in that direction.”
But an apology, Casimir said, is only a starting point.
The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and other Indigenous nations that suffered under the residential school system still don’t have complete access to documents and records they need to provide survivors and their families with closure.
There is also a long road ahead at the local level with Canadian dioceses, she said.
“There’s more work that’s going to be taken … on those relationships and building them because many of our people are still practicing Catholicism,” she said.
“For many, this has really impacted individuals’ faiths as well.”