By Elisabetta Povoledo and Ian Austen, Photo: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters, The New York Times, March 28, 2022
Pope Francis on Monday held his first Vatican meeting with Indigenous groups from Canada who were seeking his apology over the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement in a system of boarding schools that abused Indigenous children for over 100 years.
The meeting, with two of Canada’s three largest Indigenous groups, suggests that the pope, who had declined to apologize over the matter, is now prepared to discuss the church’s role as a way of making amends for the harm it caused.
The church has appeared more open to apologizing since several Indigenous communities announced last year that they had discovered signs of human remains, most likely those of children, in unmarked graves on the grounds of former schools.
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