It took 36 years from when we made "Healing the Hurts" until the Pope stated that what happened to Indigenous Children in Residential Schools was Genocide. The Government of Canada is just as guilty as the Churches of the Genocide carried out against more than 150 000 Indigenous Children across Canada.
This act of admitting to Genocide, which the Government of Canada has never acknowledged, is a significant step forward in resolving the Intergenerational Trauma still to be healed and restoring Indigenous communities, including financial restitution.
And the same Genocide happened in the United States and the Churches involved there, even though they have never admitted this reality yet! That day will eventually come, as well!
May God Bless Pope Francis for his courage in telling the truth. Let's see if the Government of Canada and the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United churches have the same courage and integrity to do the same and take action needed to restore our Indigenous communities, including financial reparations.
Genocide is Genecide, whether done by Nazi Germany or by the Governments and Churches of Canada and the United States! The reality of the Genocide committed needs to be followed by actions of restitution restoration and financial restitution.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word γένος (genos, "race, people") with the Latin suffix -caedo ("act of killing").
In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined Genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such."
These five acts are: killing group members, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Again, victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
Genocide is widely considered the epitome of human evil.