N.W.T. Catholic diocese to apologize to residential school students
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories says it will soon apologize to former students of native residential schools in the region.
Bishop Murray Chatlain told CBC News that he was very encouraged by the federal government's official apology to First Nations, Inuit and Métis people on Wednesday for the residential school experience.
"And I hope that as part of the Truth and Reconciliation [Commission] time, that we'll be making another formal apology as a diocese."
The federally appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Harry LaForme, will tour the country during its five-year mandate to hear anecdotes from former residential school students.
The three other churches involved in running residential schools — the Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches — have offered apologies or confessions to aboriginal people between 1986 and 1994.
As well, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate apologized to Canada's First Nations people in 1991.
The Roman Catholic Church has left it up to each diocese to make an apology for the region it serves.
Chatlain noted that the previous bishop has apologized for abuses that took place at Grollier Hall in Inuvik.
Chatlain said he sought input on an apology from aboriginal members at a recent meeting.
"I was asking them very straightforward, 'What do you think should be our response?' So I am looking for guidance and what is going to be healthy and appropriate as a church to respond to the pain that's been in the past," he said.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith also includes some Roman Catholic churches in Nunavut and northern Saskatchewan.
In 1996, Bishop Reynald Rouleau of the Churchill-Hudson's Bay diocese apologized to Inuit who were sent to the Joseph Bernier residential school in Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut.
Many endured physical and sexual abuse at the school, which was run by Oblate priests and Grey Nuns from the 1940s to the late1960s.
"Taking advantage of the trust that you and your families had given to the personnel of the school, the abusers perpetrated a profound violation against you: physically, emotionally and spiritually, but sexually as well," Rouleau said at the time.
"As bishop of this diocese, I'm ashamed and outraged that this happened to you."