Pope says treatment of Indigenous in Canada schools was 'genocide'

Pope Francis said on Saturday the decades-long abuse of Indigenous schoolchildren across Canada amounted to "genocide" as he returned from a six-day trip with an acknowledgement that he needed to slow down his pace of travel - or could even resign.

During his "penitential pilgrimage" across Canada this week, the 85-year-old pope offered a historic apology to the First Nations, Metis and Inuit people for what he called the "evil" committed at Catholic-run residential schools. Speaking to reporters on his return home, the head of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics used the word "genocide" to describe the treatment of children wrenched from their families and cultures to attend the state schools.

While he told reporters the word "didn't come to my mind" while in Canada, "I did describe the genocide. And I asked for forgiveness for this process which was genocide".


"Taking away children, changing the culture, changing the mentality, changing the traditions, changing a race, let's put it that way, a whole culture," he said. Although Francis's unprecedented apology was mostly welcomed across Canada, from western Alberta to Quebec and the far north, many survivors said much more needed to be done for reconciliation. Canada was the pope's 37th international trip since he was elected in 2013, but he admitted he would have to slow down his pace due to knee problems that saw him spent much of the visit in a wheelchair.

"I think that at my age and with this limitation, I have to save myself a little bit to be able to serve the Church. Or, alternatively, to think about the possibility of stepping aside," the pope said.

It was not the first time Francis has said that, if required, he could follow his predecessor Benedict XVI, who made history in 2013 by resigning due to his own declining health.

"The door is open, it's one of the normal options, but up until now I haven't knocked on this door," he said on Saturday.