“I am deeply sorry,” Pope Francis delivers apology to Canada’s Indigenous people

Pope Francis delivered a historic apology today to Canada’s First Nations people. He said he’s deeply sorry for the damage caused by residential schools to First Nations individuals, their families, and their culture and he begs forgiveness.

The Pope stopped short of saying that his Roman Catholic Church is to blame for the abuse in residential schools that were run by the church, which is what First Nations leaders were hoping for.

After flying to Canada yesterday, the Pope went to the site of the former Ermineskin Residential School near Edmonton today. He stopped to pray at the school’s cemetery that contains the bodies of First Nations children who died at the school.

One of the main events of his six-day visit to Canada was a meeting with First Nations members, many of them residential school survivors. The Pope delivered an apology in the place where abuse was carried out speaking in Spanish, through an interpreter, “telling you once more that I am deeply sorry.”

The Pope has apologized before when First Nations leaders visited the Vatican in April where he said he was sorry for the conduct of members of the Roman Catholic Church in the residential schools.

First Nations leaders were hoping he would go further this time by accepting blame not just for members of the church but on the part of the church itself, which ran more than half of the schools.

The Pope blamed policies of the time, Christians in general, and governments, “sorry for the ways in which regrettably many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed Indigenous peoples.”

The Pope also said the church will investigate what took place in residential schools, although the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s investigation has already concluded there was extensive physical and sexual abuse in the schools, and many children died. The commission had called for an apology for the church’s role in the residential school abuse.

Indigenous communities across Canada are reacting to the Pope’s apology. Many say that while it is positive to hear the head of the church ask for forgiveness, they had hoped he would commit to concrete action. Emily Taylor reports. WATCH: