Two residential school survivors offer different perspectives on Papal visit

Dorene Bernard and her mother Nancy Lutz both attended Shubenacadie Indian Residential School. But if you ask the two about the Pope’s visit, the mother and daughter don’t share the same opinion.

“I felt disappointed there wasn't more said,” said Dorene Bernard, who attended the apology in Maskwacis and also saw the Pope at the Citadelle de Québec.

Bernard wanted to hear Pope Francis rescind the Doctrine of Discovery, a centuries-old Church edict used to justify colonization of Indigenous lands.

“I felt like his apology was very scripted and probably done by the Vatican lawyers and there was certainly words in there that he couldn’t say,” she said.

“I was waiting for him to break from the script and speak from the heart, although there were times when he did, and of course one of those times was on the plane when he was leaving, when he said what happened here to the Indigenous peoples was genocide.”

Lutz, a practicing Catholic, was less critical about the Pope’s words.

“I thought he was doing good for where he was standing and people he was talking to,” she said.

Lutz believes the Pope was saying what he was told to say but when he was alone and there wasn’t a large audience around him, he was speaking from his heart.

“He is listening. He sees us,” Lutz said.

Both Bernard and Lutz are thankful the Pope came to Canada but Bernard wishes residential school survivors had more opportunity to interact with him.

She believes reconciliation is a word that’s “thrown around” and wants to see action, such as releasing residential shool records at the Vatican and returning them to Canada -- records she believes could help solve unanswered questions about children who never returned home from residential schools.

To Bernard, the Pope's visit has also offered hope.

“People are maybe even more ready to come for healing and speak now that the Pope's acknowledged that this was genocide,” she said. “Maybe those that were always fearful to speak, will speak.”

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If you are a former residential school survivor in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419

Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.