Recently, I wrote about how it is time for a massive mea culpa from religious leaders. Now, I read about the mea culpa from Pope Francis towards the indigenous children in the Canadian boarding schools. The pope called what happened to those children genocide. Yet, many believe that words are just words and that the church should compensate financially for the horrific abuses and killings that took place. Moreover, the church needs to give back many belongings to the victims, families of the victims and members of the victims’ community.

The pope was strongly criticized by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for only expressing his disgust at the macabre discoveries. I couldn’t agree more. Joe Rogan is extremely critical about the Catholic Vatican. In his podcast, he refers to it as ‘a country filled with pedophiles and stolen art’.

When a Canadian reporter asked the Pope why he had not used the term genocide, he replied that he hadn’t thought of that, but had described the events as such. “I have asked forgiveness for these activities, which were genocide. Yes, it is genocide, yes, yes, obviously.”

From the late 1800s to 1996, more than 150,000 indigenous children were sent to special boarding schools to be educated in the spirit of Western civilization. Children were beaten and sexually abused. Thousands of children died of starvation and neglect. Pope Francis apologized for the behavior of the Christians who supported the colonizing mentality of the former Canadian governments and the role of the church in the abuses at those boarding schools where these children were placed.

Since an indigenous community in Kamloops, western British Columbia, discovered hundreds of graves on the site of a former boarding school, other indigenous communities across Canada have embarked on similar quests. This year, the anonymous graves of dozens of children were found at former boarding schools. More than 1,300 children’s graves have been found so far and authorities estimate that a total of between 4,000 and 6,000 students have disappeared.

Source: own analysis on the back of many media outlets.