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The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) wants Pope Francis to visit a residential school gravesite in Saskatchewan during his upcoming trip to Canada.
On April 1, the Pope offered an apology for the Catholic church’s role in residential schools in Canada. Plans for his Canadian visit were announced at the time, but locations weren’t revealed.
On Tuesday, the FSIN issued a statement calling on the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to include one of the Saskatchewan residential school sites on the tour.
A number of First Nations in the province have found unmarked graves on those sites, including the George Gordon First Nation, the Keeseekoose First Nation and the Cowessess First Nation.
“The Pope owes every survivor, family, and community affected by the Catholic-operated Indian Residential Schools an apology on our own Treaty territory,” FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron said in the statement.
“There are over 100,000 Indian residential school survivors and intergenerational survivors in Saskatchewan (and) 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.
“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.”
The FSIN noted Saskatchewan had 22 residential schools — one of the highest numbers in Canada — and at least half were run by the Catholic Church. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has said residents were sexually, physically and mentally abused during their stay at the schools.
In late March, First Nations, Inuit and Metis delegates met with Pope Francis in Rome. That group included Marie-Anne Day Walker-Pelletier, who said she gave the pontiff baby moccasins and asked him to put them on the steps of a residential school in Saskatchewan “to show good faith in his apology and to acknowledge the harms committed by the Church.”
“Our First Nations communities are still suffering greatly from the intergenerational traumas created by the harms committed within the walls of these schools,” Day Walker-Pelletier said in the statement. “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.”