CRANBROOK, British Columbia (AP) - A Canadian Indigenous group said June 30 a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site near a former Catholic Church-run residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their families.
The latest discovery of graves near Cranbrook, British Columbia, follows reports of similar findings at two other such church-run schools, one of more than 600 unmarked graves and another of 215 bodies. Cranbrook is 520 miles east of Vancouver.
The Lower Kootenay Band said in a news release that it began using the technology last year to search the site close to the former St. Eugene’s Mission School, which was operated by the Catholic Church from 1912 until the early 1970s. It said the search found the remains in unmarked graves, some about 3 feet deep.
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, with many never returned to their families.
Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which today is the largest Protestant denomination in the country.
The Canadian government has acknowledged that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages.
Last month the Cowessess First Nation, about 85 miles east of the Saskatchewan capital of Regina, said investigators found “at least 600” unmarked graves at the site of a former Marieval Indian Residential School.
Also last month, the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.
Before the most recent finding, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians are “horrified and ashamed” by their government’s longtime policy of forcing Indigenous children to attend boarding schools.
“This was an incredibly harmful government policy that was Canada’s reality for many, many decades and Canadians today are horrified and ashamed of how our country behaved,” Trudeau said. “It was a policy that ripped kids from their homes, from their communities, from their culture and their language and forced assimilation upon them.”
On June 29, it was announced that a group of Indigenous leaders will visit the Vatican later this year to press for a papal apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Indigenous leaders will visit the Vatican from Dec. 17-20 to meet with Pope Francis and “foster meaningful encounters of dialogue and healing.”
After the graves were found in Kamloops, the Pope expressed his pain over the discovery and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he didn’t offer the apology sought by First Nations and the Canadian government.
The leader of one of Canada’s largest Indigenous groups said there are no guarantees an Indigenous delegation travelling to the Vatican will lead to Pope Francis apologizing in Canada.
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde confirmed that assembly representatives will join Metis and Inuit leaders making the trip to the Vatican in late December.
“The Anglican Church has apologized,” he told a virtual news conference. “The Presbyterian Church has apologized. United Church has apologized,” adding, “This is really part of truth and part of the healing and reconciliation process for survivors to hear the apology from the highest position within the Roman Catholic Church, which is the pope.”
Since the discovery of unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools, there have been several fires at churches across Canada. There has also been some vandalism targeting churches and statues in cities.
Four small Catholic churches on Indigenous lands in rural southern British Columbia have been destroyed by suspicious fires and a vacant former Anglican church in northwestern B.C. was recently damaged in what police said could be arson.
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