Apology a start, but Manitoba Indigenous leaders, elders express disappointment with Pope's visit

Indigenous leaders in Manitoba are reflecting on what Pope Francis said, and didn't say, during a historic tour across Canada that ended Friday.

Ernie Daniels, a residential school survivor and the former chief of Long Plain First Nation, met personally with the Pope after his apology in Maskwacis, Alta., Monday for the role some members of the Roman Catholic Church played in Canada's residential school system.

Survivors had mixed reactions, Daniels said.

"It was nice … but in terms of the response of the survivors and the elders that were there, it was a tepid response. Lukewarm is the best I can describe it," he told guest host Bryce Hoye in an interview with CBC Manitoba's Weekend Morning Show.

Over the last week, the head of the Roman Catholic Church visited Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit on what he called a "penitential pilgrimage."

While addressing residential school survivors and their families in Maskwacis, just south of Edmonton, the Pope expressed deep sorrow for harms suffered at the church-run schools and asked for forgiveness "for the wrong done by so many Christians to the Indigenous peoples."

The Pope didn't mention the sexual abuse Indigenous children faced at residential schools in his initial apology, Daniels noted, nor did he mention the potential unmarked graves near those schools.

Pope Francis also neglected to mention compensation for residential school survivors and a fund to repatriate remains found on residential school sites, Daniels said.

But he was relieved to hear that on his flight back to Rome, Pope Francis acknowledged everything he described about the residential school system and its forced assimilation of Indigenous children during his Canadian visit amounts to genocide.

Daniels also said the gift of a headdress to the Pope while he was in Alberta — a move that has drawn criticism — was "inappropriate," and more people should have been involved in the decision to present the gift.

Overall, "I was disappointed in some way" with the Pope's apology, Daniels said.

"But nevertheless, he did say, 'I am sorry.…' I wish he had said more, like 'On behalf of the Catholic Church, I am sorry.'"

Rescind Doctrine of Discovery: MKO

Now that Pope Francis has returned to the Vatican, his apology has made room for Canadian bishops to work with survivors on a plan to achieve true reconciliation, said Daniels.

"Many of our survivors are still in pain," he said. "That will never go away."

But he wanted to hear the Pope rescind the Doctrine of Discovery — a 15th-century series of edicts, known as papal bulls, that paved the way for colonization.

In a Friday letter, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee urged the Pope to "recant, rescind and replace" the papal bulls which form the doctrine.

That would be consistent with the United Nation Declaration of Indigenous Peoples, Settee wrote, as well as Pope Francis's statement Monday that the residential school system was "incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

The doctrine "continues to be applied by the courts of the 'Christian' colonizing nations as established international and domestic law to this day," wrote the grand chief of MKO, which represents First Nations in northern Manitoba.

The Catholic Church bears a responsibility for the catastrophic results for Indigenous peoples across the globe, Settee said, including the dispossession of lands, forced religious conversion, enslavement and genocide.

'Certainly are moving forward': elder

Dolorès Gosselin, a Red River Métis elder who lives in Stuartburn, Man., has been critical of some aspects of the Pope's visit, but called his stop in Iqaluit on Friday "a good ending to the week."

She was glad to see Inuit traditions celebrated there, she told Canada Tonight host Ginella Massa.

But she has said too little was done over the course of the week to include more Indigenous traditions, and particularly to include Indigenous women.

"In the churches [Pope Francis visited], the front of the church was full of Christian men," she said. "It would have been easy to have a balance … of [members of] the First Nations and the Catholic Church." 

She also said she was sad it took the Catholic Church so long to make an apology for residential schools in Canada.

Gosselin said sometimes it feels like the church wants Indigenous people to come to them for healing, but it needs to be the other way around. She would like to see Christians attend Indigenous ceremonies such as sun dances and sweat lodges.

"The Native people will go forward, and if the church wants to join us, they're welcome," she said.

"But we certainly are moving forward."