To all the survivors of residential schools, the dead, and those who love them,

The Catholic Church was responsible for running 70% of Canadian Residential schools. This is an undisputed fact, but a fact that many of the statements issued by the leadership of our church have not acknowledged. While the statements issued express sorrow, they’re missing the word “sorry”. The Catholic Church is the only one of all the Canadian churches who ran these schools to not apologize. While some individual Bishops and religious orders have apologized, neither the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops nor Pope Francis has taken responsibility in the broader fashion that cannot be accomplished by individual Bishops or orders. So we, the Catholic people, are issuing our own apology, since our leaders will not do it on our behalf. 

Those of us sitting in the pews may not have the power of a bishop or the authority of a canonical court. But, as we are so often told, we ARE the church. And we, the church, apologize unreservedly for the actions of our forefathers and foremothers. We apologize for the horrible abuses by our own priests, brothers, and sisters. We take responsibility and ownership of the cultural genocide perpetrated against indigenous peoples in Canada by our church. We acknowledge the intergenerational trauma that lives in your communities today stemming from this abuse and accept our church’s place in causing it. We pledge to do whatever we can to help you heal this wound. And further, we apologize for our leaders not doing this themselves. 

We grieve and ache for every child who was taken and for every family member who was robbed of their right to raise those children. 

Signed,
We the church