SASKATOON — The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations executive is calling on the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to arrange for the July 2022 papal visit to include one of the Saskatchewan Indian Residential School grave sites, such as the Muskowekwan Indian Residential School, where the school still stands, and where 35 graves have been discovered in 2021.
“During my visit with Pope Francis at the Vatican in Rome, I presented him with baby moccasins and in return asked for a promise for him to return them to the steps of an Indian Residential School in our region to show good faith in his apology and to acknowledge the harms committed by the Church to thousands of First Nations survivors and their descendants and the babies that we are looking for through radar searches today and for the babies we will never find but we know were born at these schools” says Dr Marie-Anne Daywalker-Pelletier. “Our First Nations communities are still suffering greatly from the intergenerational traumas created by the harms committed within the walls of these schools. We welcome Pope Francis to walk within the same walls of the institutions that committed genocide against us through the theft and abuses of our children. The front steps of the Muskowekwan Indian Residential School would an ideal location for Pope Francis to place those baby moccasins in memory of our children that will never return home and for the ones who came home changed forever.”
Saskatchewan had one of the highest numbers of Indian Residential Schools in the country with 22 schools that housed tens of thousands of First Nations children. Of those 22 Indian Residential Schools, at least half were run by the Catholic Church, who severely sexually, physically and mentally abused the victims that were forced to attend, stated the FSIN in is statement calling for the Papal Visit. This damage also continued in the Indian Day School regime, where the church continued to abuse and mistreat the children and their communities. The Catholic religion continues to be practised by some First Nations in Saskatchewan and the Pope, as the leader of that church, needs to be accountable to his membership, says the FSIN.
“The Pope owes every survivor, family and community affected by the Catholic-operated Indian Residential Schools an apology on our own Treaty territory. There are over 100,000 Indian Residential School Survivors and intergenerational survivors in Saskatchewan, many are the victims and survivors of the Roman Catholic Church and there are also many survivors who continue to be members of the Catholic faith,” says FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron. “The Pope needs to visit one of our First Nations in Saskatchewan to witness for himself the reality we are facing today and the work our First Nations are conducting in finding the unmarked graves of hundreds of our children. Pope Francis and the Church must bear witness to the devastation brought on by the church in our Treaty territory.”
