By Christopher White - Vatican Correspondent, National Catholic Reporter
The pope's remarks — his first since
arriving in the country on Sunday, July 24 — fulfill a demand from the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, which since 2015 has called on the pope to formally issue an
apology on Canadian soil for the "spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical
and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children in Catholic-run
residential schools."
"I am sorry," said Francis.
"I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of
the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their
indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted
by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential
schools."
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