Former premier Stephen Kakfwi says there might still be a way for Indigenous leaders to get Pope Francis to address the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system.
A public letter was released last Tuesday from the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Lionel Gendron, explaining that Pope Francis “felt he could not personally respond” to the request for an apology for the church’s role in Canada’s residential school system, after that apology was both recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and requested by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
NNSL file photo
The letter states this decision was made after careful consideration and extensive dialogue with Canada’s bishops.
“He has responded by simply saying that he cannot personally respond to call to action 58 (from the TRC, which requests the apology) because his priority right now is that the work of reconciliation be done at the local level,” says Archbishop Richard Gagnon, to whom the Conference has directed media request on this topic, “that there's a lot has been done, but much more needs to be done in order to effectively move in the direction of reconciliation.”
One door apparently left open on this subject is that the letter states a future Papal visit to Canada may be considered, with an “encounter with the Indigenous peoples as a top priority.”
“The Holy Father really believes (local reconciliation action is) important at this point, but he hasn't ruled out a future visit to Canada,” says Gagnon. “It's something that he has a great interest in.”
At this junction, of both not issuing an apology but hinting that a visit may be in the cards, former premier Stephen Kakfwi sees signs of inner-church politics.
“I think all the popes have a struggle with the Vatican, with the structure of the churches,” says Kakfwi. The bishops and the cardinals have enormous influence on the pope. It's a struggle he has to carve out his own approach and put his character on it.
“Part of being a pope … is to keep the machinery of the church at bay so he could do the things that he wants to do and this smacks of it. I mean, who would say that? You know? Who would say, you know, I personally cannot issue an apology.”
Kakfwi says it isn’t Pope Francis that anyone wants an apology from – it’s the office of the spiritual head of the Catholic Church.
When asked what the harm would be of issuing an apology, Gagnon did not say directly, but asserted that the top priority of bishops in Canada is to advance reconciliation and help create better futures for Indigenous peoples and that not only Canada’s bishops but the pope himself have a deep love and admiration for Indigenous peoples.
“People are not being abandoned at all, if that's what you're inferring,” says Gagnon, “but this must be seen as part of that continuum of reconciliation.”
Gagnon says an apology issued by Pope Francis in Bolivia in 2015 was inclusive of all Indigenous peoples in the Americas.
“I humbly ask forgiveness,” the pontiff was quoted saying by the New York Times, “not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”
The inconsistency between that language and last week’s is what makes Kakfwi think a more direct approach to the pope may see success.
“He's saying he won't apologize personally. And he hasn't ruled out a visit. That's the strangest language you've heard in a long time.”
Kakfwi organized and hosted Pope John Paul II’s visit to Fort Simpson in 1987.
Kakfwi says achieving the visit – held after the cancellation of a first visit – was “nothing short of a miracle.”
It had involved going above the heads of the Canadian bishops, he says. The Indigenous leadership, including Kakfwi, went to the Vatican and personally invited Pope John Paul II.
He says, similarly, Indigenous leadership might have success in going above the bureaucracy of the nearly 2,000-year-old church and appealing to the Holy Father himself. He himself, having done it twice already, says he can’t put himself through that again.
He remembers the event as shining a light on Indigenous peoples and their plight at a very dark time in Canada’s history.
“I think Pope John Paul was exceptionally a special man and it meant so much more back then because our rights were not being recognized. Our rights were being extinguished. We were still being colonized to a great extent.”
While the efforts to arrange the visit were diminishing and difficult, he said he considers Pope John Paul II an “exceptionally special man” and the visit did so much for so many people, especially elders who “passed on to the next world with the joy of having seen the head of the Catholic faith that they're so devoted to.”
Bishop Jon Hansen was ordained the head of the Mackenzie-Fort Smith Diocese, which encompasses the NWT, just two weeks ago. He fashioned his coat of arms to bear the motto “Veritas et Reconciliato” – “Truth and Reconciliation” in Latin.
Hansen admits he was disappointed by the decision on the apology and couldn’t speculate on it as he says he doesn’t have access to the inner circle of Canadian bishops.
He says he thinks it would be a mistake to assume the Pope’s reason for not coming and delivering an apology is due to a change in attitude and that his record illustrates his desire to be on the side of the poor, the marginalized and the colonized. Hansen speculated only that the decision may be due to factors not completely in the Pope’s control.
“I want to see it in its most positive light,” says Hansen. And what I'm hearing in the letter is that, this isn't the end of any possibility of Pope Francis coming to Canada. It's just not at this time. And in the meantime, I think what I see as a real encouragement for the bishops of Canada to put their full energy behind reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples.”