Trudeau asks Pope Francis to apologise to indigenous people for church's abuses

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Justin Trudeau has urged Pope Francis to visit Canada to apologise to indigenous peoples for the Catholic church’s treatment of aboriginal children in schools it ran there.

Starting in the late 19th century, about 30% of children of Canada’s native peoples, or about 150,000 children, were placed in what were known as “residential schools” in a government attempt to strip them of their traditional cultures and ancestral languages.

For over a century the schools were government-funded but many were administered by Christian churches, mostly Roman Catholic.

“I told him how important it is for Canadians to move forward on real reconciliation with the indigenous peoples and I highlighted how he could help by issuing an apology,” Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, told reporters after meeting the pope.

He said he had invited the pontiff to make the apology in Canada.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in a 2015 report that the practice, which kept children from the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples far from their parents, amounted to “cultural genocide”.

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