Should We Apologize for the North American Martyrs? by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, July 29, 2022

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org.

We’re coming to the end of a week in which Pope Francis has repeatedly denounced the excesses, real or imagined, of Catholic missionary work in Canada.

Again and again his “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, the Pope apologized for “the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the indigenous peoples.” He lamented that Christians had “cooperated… in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of the residential schools.” …