Pope Francis is on his 38th trip abroad to Canada. He wants to “meet and hug” the indigenous peoples and draw attention to their suffering, to which the church has contributed. Will he also take responsibility?
In April, Pope Francis received a First Nations delegation at the Vatican
“We expect an apology from Pope Francis. The people expect that.” In an interview with Deutsche Welle, 64-year-old Evelyn Korkmaz is looking forward to the Catholic Church leader's visit to Canada, which begins this Sunday. “My people expect an apology.”
Evelyn Korkmaz today – and as a four year old.
More than 50 years ago, Korkmaz had her personal tale of suffering with the Catholic Church. It is the suffering of tens of thousands of First Nations children, the indigenous people of Canada. At the age of ten, Evelyn Korkmaz attended St. Anne's Residential School in Fort Albany in northern Ontario, near several reservations. She suffered four years. There, she reports, there was “an electric chair” and children were put in straitjackets. And they experienced abuse, rape, even death.
Horrifying reports
For a number of years, more and more new reports about the fate of the indigenous children in the so-called residential schools -  ;boarding school-like schools that only took in children from indigenous families and wanted to forcibly re-educate them – and the processing of Canada.
In 2021, unnamed cemeteries containing the remains of children were uncovered at a number of former boarding schools
Some of the schools, including St. Anne's until it closed in 1976, were run by the church, as large parts of the population were Catholic. What the schools, whether state or church-sponsored, had in common: Thousands of attacks on students and a strikingly high mortality rate. Numerous anonymous cemeteries have been discovered in recent years.
Pope Francis has repeatedly closed himself during his Sunday midday prayers to Residential Schools, here in June 2021.
Last Sunday, Pope Francis commented on his upcoming visit during the usual midday prayer in St. Peter's Square. It is a “journey of repentance”. He wanted to go to Canada “particularly to meet and embrace the indigenous peoples in the name of Jesus”.
The Pope speaks of a “journey of penance”
A “journey of repentance” can also mean an apology, but it is not unequivocal. Francis' journey seems like a journey to the indigenous people. Sure, there will also be meetings with state representatives in Quebec. But the Pope is visiting several of the former schools, once he will fly to Iqaluit far up north, and there are several meetings with delegations from the indigenous peoples or with former students of a residential school.
Evelyn Korkmaz at a memorial service in Ottawa
“If he doesn't apologize on behalf of the church, people will be disappointed,” Korkmaz told DW. Then the whole thing would remain a “propaganda event”. But she also expects “concrete steps, concrete action. An apology, after all, those are just words.” The Vatican should finally publish documents regarding the residential schools that are kept by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This would give more concrete numbers and the indigenous peoples would learn more about their history. “And maybe we can identify more of the unnamed children whose remains have been found in burial grounds on school grounds in different areas of Canada since 2021,” says Korkmaz.
Since the 1990s, the Canadian government has been trying to come to terms with the fate of indigenous children in residential schools. The Catholic Church soon followed. Representatives of the indigenous people already visited the Vatican in 2009 and met Pope Benedict XVI. (2005-2013), who never traveled to Canada himself. In late March and early April this year, Francis met with indigenous delegations in the Vatican for three days.
Finally, in a speech, the Pope addressed the “reports of suffering, deprivation, discriminatory treatment and various forms of abuse” in the boarding schools.
“I'm sorry,” said the Pope
He feels “pain and shame” for the role that “various Catholics” played in it. “For the deplorable behavior of these members of the Catholic Church” he asks God for forgiveness. And he wanted to “say from the bottom of my heart: I'm very sorry.” But that's not enough for many people like Evelyn Korkmaz. They expect an apology that addresses the responsibilities of the entire church as a system, not just the failure of individual Catholics.
The handling of the indigenous people of Canada, the dismay is typical and formative for the pontificate of this pope, which began in 2013, and the current trip also shows a difference to his predecessor. With Francis, the closeness to the people on the fringes of society is clearly always at the center of his activities. During his first years in office, this included occasional stops at poor Roma settlements on the outskirts of the Italian capital, and he always values such encounters on his trips abroad.
In recent weeks, Pope Francis has often only been seen in a wheelchair
Most recently, the 85-year-old had to cancel three trips abroad to Lebanon and two crisis-ridden African countries, Congo and South Sudan, because of his poor health. For many weeks, photos mostly showed images of the Pope in a wheelchair – one of his knees was causing him too much pain. The daily program in Canada is also noticeably clearer than the timetable of previous papal trips. So he lands in Edmonton on Sunday around noon local time coming from Rome and after a short greeting at the airport he has no further appointment.
“Report, don't cover up”
Evelyn Korkmaz, who lives in Ottawa, is involved in a variety of ways in dealing with violence against minors. In Canada, she launched an initiative to help former church students and victims of clergy abuse cope with trauma. At international level, she is one of the co-founders of the “Ending Clergy Abuse” (ECA) initiative. Their demands include that priests and church people who commit abuse are consistently reported, that they are not transferred and that crimes are not covered up.
Evelyn Korkmaz is committed to reappraisal
Before the Pope's trip to Canada, her expectations go beyond her home country and the issue of abuse. She hopes that Francis will reconsider church teachings about the “discovery” of regions in America, Africa and Asia. “In many cases, they simply took our land, the land of the indigenous people, and labeled us as heathen.” But tribal people's land doesn't belong to anyone else, anywhere in the world.
She wants a pattern. On the ECA website, the most recent publication is already looking to a different region. It's about “power, abuse and cover-up in New Zealand schools”. The participation of the Catholic Marist religious orders is also denounced.