Susan Enge will be thinking of her mother’s time in a residential school during the long journey south from the Northwest Territories to see Pope Francis in Alberta.
Her thoughts will linger on that legacy and the complexities of being Indigenous and Catholic during the eight-hour drive from her home in Fort Smith to Yellowknife, where she is to join a flight to Edmonton on Sunday.
“Being a strong Catholic, I think it’s important to forgive people for their wrongdoings,” she says.
“It’s a personal choice and a personal journey for everyone who is seeking healing from the Pope’s messaging.”
Enge is going with her 24-year-old daughter in a group of about 40 people organized through the diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith.
Thousands of people are to travel by bus, plane and even boat in the coming days to attend events during the historic papal visit. Pope Francis is set to land in Edmonton on Sunday before going to Quebec City on Wednesday and Iqaluit on Friday. The visit is to include public and private events with an emphasis on Indigenous participation.
It’s expected Francis will deliver an apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools at the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School in the community of Maskwacis, Alta.
An estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools over a century, and the Catholic Church ran about 60 per cent of the institutions.
Fern Hendersen says he was confused about who he was after suffering emotional, spiritual and physical abuse at a residential school in Manitoba as a child. For much of his life, he believed it was his fault and never felt that he belonged anywhere.
He says hearing from Pope Francis will be an acknowledgment of that truth and pain.
"I am finally going to hear the words, 'I am sorry' ... sorry for taking my identity, sorry for taking my language, sorry for taking my culture and family away from me," Hendersen says as he chokes back tears.
He is attending the events with his sister and a group from Sagkeeng First Nation. He expects a lot of painful memories to surface during the long drive. But, he says, it's important to go for all his family members who didn't live to see the day the leader of the Catholic Church recognized the harm that was done.
He is also going for his children and grandchildren "so they can go forward in a positive way."
Organizing travel hasn’t been easy, as plans and funds recently began to materialize for Indigenous organizations and communities. Many Indigenous people, including Hendersen, learned just this week whether they can take part in the events.
Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations has said he was deeply concerned by the lack of co-ordination in the visit. Many survivors don’t have the agency, money or technology to attend the Pope’s visit, he said.
“The survivors had zero choice as children, and now some await approval from the very systems that tore them from their families, homes, culture and identity as children is absolutely ludicrous,” he said in a recent news release.
The federal government is putting up $30.5 million for community-led activities, ceremonies and travel for survivors during the visit.
Despite logistical challenges, the importance of the trip has pushed many forward on a journey to attend.
A large group organized by the Manitoba Métis Federation has rented buses and plans to drive over two days to get to the events in Alberta.
Andrew Carrier, who is a day school survivor, says he felt silenced for years after he was sexually abused by a priest as a young child. His father was also abused, Carrier says. It’s a legacy that will weigh heavy on his heart as he rides the highways across the vast Prairies.
“It’s really important as part of the healing journey to be heard and to be recognized by the Pope,” Carrier says.
Carrier, like many Manitoba Métis citizens, is Catholic. He says the papal visit will be crucial to their healing and to forge pathways forward with the church.
“It’s an opportunity for closure,” he says.
Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee, who represents northern First Nations in Manitoba, says while he hopes to hear a sincere apology from Francis in Alberta, the acknowledgment won’t make a difference to everyone.
“Healing happens differently for all of us,” Settee said in a recent news release.
“There is no right way to heal from the generational trauma that has been inflicted upon our people due to the residential school system.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2022.
Comments
Some things are unforgivable though, and destroying a child's innocence is definitely one of them. The only thing that would really make sense would be for the pope
to denounce Catholicism itself. Sterile and wildly unnatural, Catholic doctrine is the problem here, obviously attracting various sexual deviants to its ranks.
All of the residential school survivors that became Catholic, and I'd be interested in the percentage that ultimately succumbed to the indoctrination, are clearly ignoring the fact that Catholic priests continue to abuse children around the world as we speak. Their experiences were indeed far worse, but all the more reason to completely eschew the doctrine and the Church because THAT is the sanction, the enabler, so by subscribing to it, all believers become part of that.
And the pope HAS already apologized, which wasn't enough, so they think that if he comes HERE where it happened that will mean more, but that very likely won't do it either, because HE remains the head enabler.
This entire exercise is quite frankly both disappointing and disturbing.
Matthew 18:6
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” The church should read the good book.