‘Gaps’ in Pope’s apology can’t be ignored, says Crown-Indigenous Relations minister

Jul 27, 2022 | 11:40 AM

OTTAWA — Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller says the “gaps” in Pope Francis’s apology to residential school survivors cannot be ignored.

Miller says the pontiff’s words, delivered this week near Edmonton, are important to the survivors and communities now absorbing them.

The minister says Indigenous people will decide for themselves what they think, but notes some differences between the pontiff’s apology in Canada and one delivered years earlier to abuse victims in Ireland.

Two of the main criticisms that have emerged since Pope Francis apologized to residential school survivors was how he did not mention sexual abuse in his remarks and discussed the “evil” committed by Christians, but not the Catholic Church as an institution.