‘Healing is more important than anger’: Manitoba survivor comments on papal apology

A Manitoba day school survivor says he believes Monday’s apology from Pope Francis to Canada’s Indigenous people came from the heart.

Andrew Carrier of the Manitoba Metis Federation was in attendance in Alberta for the historic event, and told 680 CJOB’s The Start that hearing the pontiff’s words in person meant a lot to him as both a survivor and a practising Catholic.

“To hear the Pope speak… (it was) as if he spoke directly to me as a survivor, and the impact was just incredible,” Carrier said.

“I have never lost my faith in God or the Catholic church — I have lost my faith in the men and women who have abused us.

“I have to separate those two … to realize that the healing is much more important than the anger.”

Carrier said the papal apology brought up tough emotions from his own experience, but also reminded him of what his own father, who was abused as a child, went through.

“My father shared with me that he was 10 years old when he was abused by a priest,” Carrier said.

“So with the intergenerational (trauma), (I’m) also thinking of the impact, how it is so difficult to let go of such a horrendous abuse at the hands of an adult from a child’s perspective.”

The Pope’s ongoing Canadian tour will see him meet with survivors at events in Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut over six days.

He previously apologized for the church’s role in the residential school system when a delegation of Canadian First Nations and Métis peoples travelled to the Vatican in the spring.

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