Hours after apologizing for the role members of the Catholic Church play in Canada’s school system, Pope Francis was welcomed into Edmonton’s Sacred Heart First Nations Church on Monday, where he offered his own reflections on the importance of reconciliation.
The pope is undertaking what he calls a “penitential pilgrimage” as part of an effort to acknowledge the injustices inflicted on Canada’s indigenous peoples through the residential school system.
Earlier in the day, Pope Francis issued a public apology and asked for forgiveness during a stop at the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School in Maskwacis, Alta.
Addressing the parishioners of Sacred Heart, a Catholic parish that incorporates indigenous rituals, Pope Francis praised them for their openness and inclusiveness, as well as their charitable work.
“It pains me to think that Catholics have contributed to policies of assimilation and (dis)enfranchisement that instill feelings of inferiority, rob communities and individuals of their cultural and spiritual identity, cut off their roots, and promote prejudice and discriminatory attitudes, and that it was also done in the name of an education system that was supposed to be Christian,” Francis said, speaking in his first language, Spanish.
Nearly 250 guests, many parishioners, were expected to attend, with others traveling from communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and Manitoba to represent their land.
The Edmonton church has released the pope’s itinerary in advance, which includes local cultural singing, prayer, a papal address and the blessing of a statue of Algonquin-Mohok Catholic saint Kateri Tekakwitha.
During his homily, Pope Francis shared his thoughts on the word “reconciliation”, saying that he “can only imagine the effort that must be needed for those who have suffered so much, because of the men and women who had to set an example of a Christian life. “
“If we want to make peace with each other and with ourselves, make peace with the past, with the wrongs suffered and the memories wounded with traumatic experiences that no human consolation could heal, our eyes must be raised to the crucified Jesus ” he said I said.
“Peace must be achieved on the altar of His cross, for it is on the wood of the cross that sorrow is transformed into love, death into life, disappointment into hope, abandonment into communion, distance into unity.” Reconciliation is not simply the result of our own efforts. It is a gift that flows from the crucified Lord, a peace that radiates from the heart of Jesus, a grace that must be sought.”
Although its history dates back to the early 1900s, the church officially became Sacred Heart Church of the First People on October 27, 1991.
The church underwent a redesign after an accidental fire damaged it on August 30, 2020.
During the redesign, the church added a tipi structure above the altar, with the four pillars holding the tipi symbolizing the four stages of life in Catholicism as well as local culture.
“It allowed us to say that this building is really something we can be proud of and that it is really Indigenous. So now we can move the rest of the community, move the city and of course nationally across Canada and hopefully the world,” Sacred Heart councilor Candida Shepherd told CTV News Edmonton on the day of his re-election opening last week.
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If you are a former Indian school survivor in distress or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the Indian Residential Schools 24-hour crisis line: 1-866-925-4419 . Additional mental health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.
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