Pope Francis set to meet with Canadian Indigenous delegations next week

Following the discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at residential schools across Canada in 2021, the Catholic Church has ramped up efforts to reconcile its involvement.

Meetings between Pope Francis and Indigenous groups were scheduled for December, however due to COVID-19 they were postponed until March.

In February, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that Pope Francis would meet with the as well as delegations from the Assembly of First Nations, Métis National Council, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

The meetings will begin the week of March 28 with individual Indigenous delegations, and on April 1st, the Pope is set to invite all delegations to a final session.

Indigenous people will have the opportunity to deliver testimonies of the societal and personal ramifications of Canada's residential school system.

According to the Vatican News, CCCB president Bishop Raymond Poisson has high hopes for the event. "The journey towards healing and reconciliation is a long one," he said, "but we believe this will be a significant milestone in the Catholic Church's commitment to renewing, strengthening and reconciling relationships with Indigenous Peoples across the land."

"With this delegation," Bishop Poisson continued, "we hope to walk together in a new way, to listen with humility, and to discern the next steps that the Church can take to support residential school survivors, their families, and their communities."

Aside from the Canadian government itself, the Catholic Church has bore the brunt of responsibility for the residential school system, which operated for over 150 years before finally being shut down in 1996. It is estimated that around 150,000 children were removed from their families and taken to these schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has described the institution as "a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples;" essentially "cultural genocide."

The government has apologized for its involvement, however the Catholic Church has yet to offer a direct apology.