Nipissing First Nation Chief wants an apology from the Pope

By Kelly Anne Smith   

NIPISSING FIRST NATION—Chief Scott McLeod is disappointed that the head of the Roman Catholic Church won’t give an apology to Canada’s Indigenous people.

Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies are in a state of disbelief after Pope Francis indicated he wouldn’t apologize to survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools for the role the Roman Catholic church had in abuses suffered.

The Roman Catholic church ran most of Canada’s 139 Residential Schools which controlled over 160,000 children and their families between 1883 and 1996.

The Chief of Nipissing First Nation has reflected on the Pope’s message.

“He is using the angle that he can’t make any statement personally. I don’t think the Indigenous People of Canada are looking for a personal apology. They are looking to the head of the Catholic Church to apologize on behalf of the wrongdoings of Catholic Church, not anything that he did personally.”

Chief McLeod is discouraged that Pope Francis took that position.

“It’s about helping us to move on and to heal. To be fair, I think a lot of Catholic parishioners are probably disappointed at this as well. I don’t think we can interpret this as a blanket feeling representative of the entire catholic communities, but at the same time, it sends a disappointing message to the First Nations people of Canada that their healing is going to have to wait.”

“Look at what has happened in the past and now you have the victims justifying the need for an apology. But yet the offenders are deciding whether it’s appropriate or not. I think that is fundamentally wrong. I think if anybody should decide whether it’s appropriate for an apology or not, it’s the victims not the offender.”

In 2009, as the Chief of Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine, a Residential School survivor, met with Pope Benedict IXV who expressed his sorrow, but he never used the word apology. The minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Carolyn Bennett went further, saying: “Sorrow is not enough.”

Other Christian denominations have apologized.

A motion is expected to be voted on in the House of Commons this week. It will ask Pope Francis to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission requested the Papal apology in the #58 Call to Action.