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Pope: Canadian residential schools were cultural 'genocide'
Summary by Ground News
Pope Francis agreed Saturday that the attempt to eliminate Indigenous culture in Canada through a church-run residential school system amounted to a cultural “genocide.” Francis apologized multiple times throughout the week for the role the Roman Catholic Church played in the institutions. He begged for forgiveness for abuses committed by some members of the church as well as for cultural destruction and forced assimilation. Some 150,000 children from the late 1800s to the 1970s were subject to the forced assimilation policy. Physical and sexual abuse were rampant at the schools, and children were beaten for speaking their Native languages.