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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Chief, Pope to discuss residential schools

Meeting could be 'historic': Fontaine

By: Mia Rabson

Posted: 04/16/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine, left, and the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop James Weisgerber, announce Wednesday the meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. (SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA -- Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber was uncertain as he headed to Rome last November for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

As head of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Weisgerber meets with the Pope every year, but his plans for the 2008 gathering included an unusual request: a private meeting between the Pope and Canada's First Nations leaders and survivors of residential schools.

To the archbishop's pleasant surprise, the Pope agreed, saying he was the only one who could speak on behalf of the Catholic Church as a whole.

"When it was laid out clearly for him, he immediately said yes," Weisgerber said.

So April 29, a delegation of aboriginal leaders, elders and residential school survivors will arrive at the Vatican for a general audience with the Pope that will last about an hour. Five of the group, including National Chief Phil Fontaine from the Assembly of National Chiefs, will then have a 15-minute private meeting with the Pope, where it is expected the pontiff will provide a written text that acknowledges the role the Catholic Church played in residential schools.

Fontaine, who grew up in Sagkeeng, is himself a victim of sexual abuse at the Fort Alexander residential school run by the Catholic Church. He said he was "pleasantly surprised" to find out about the plan from Weisgerber last fall.

"A lot of good is going to come from this," Fontaine said.

Residential schools were run by the churches for the federal government in a program designed to assimilate native children. More than 150,000 aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their families and enrolled in the schools between the late 1880s and the early 1980s. Students were punished for speaking their own language or practising cultural traditions. The schools were also rampant with physical and sexual abuse and are blamed for many of the social problems facing aboriginal Canadians today.

Weisgerber said distrust of the church due to residential schools is a barrier to the church being able to help address those problems.

Three-quarters of the schools were run by the Roman Catholic Church, including eight of the 15 schools in Manitoba.

Weisgerber's request came following a speech Fontaine delivered to the annual meeting of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in October in which he said improving the relationship between aboriginals and the Catholic Church could only happen with some formal acknowledgement of the church's role in residential schools.

Fontaine is not expecting an actual apology from the Pope, but said a formal acknowledgement of what happened is enough. He said it's the "missing piece" in efforts to achieve reconciliation between aboriginal Canadians and the rest of Canada.

"This meeting has the potential to be a historic and momentous occasion," Fontaine said.

Weisgerber said there are many reasons why it is difficult, or even impossible, for the Pope to apologize for something someone else did.

The Catholic Church is the only church that has yet to formally apologize for helping run residential schools. The Anglican Church of Canada apologized in 1993 and the United Church followed suit in 1998.

The federal government apologized in the House of Commons last June.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 16, 2009 A3

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