Manitoba Indigenous leaders among those in Rome to say farewell to Pope Francis, remembered as 'strong ally'

Indigenous leaders from Manitoba were among those who paid their last respects to Pope Francis at a funeral mass in Rome on Saturday, honouring his efforts to make the Roman Catholic Church more inclusive and accountable for its mistakes, while holding out hope the next pontiff will carry on Francis's legacy on reconciliation.

Francis, who had been the leader of the Catholic Church since 2013, died on Monday at the age of 88 after a stroke, triggering a transition period for the 1.4 billion-member church.

David Chartrand, the president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, was among the legion of faithful and pilgrims from around the world in Rome who lined up for hours on Friday to pay his respects to Francis as he lay in state in St. Peter's Basilica.

"I was not going to miss this opportunity," Chartrand said. "We owe him."

Saturday's funeral mass was not far from the room in the Vatican where Chartrand and Francis met in 2022, when the MMF president travelled with a delegation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people to press for an apology on the Catholic Church's role in residential schools.

In spite of COVID-19 restrictions in place at the time, Francis made a point of shaking the hands of everybody in the delegation, Chartrand said.

"Some of them actually were crying. You could see … the teardrops falling in his hand because they were so touched," Chartrand said. 

The Pope later delivered apologies at the Vatican, and then in Canada, for the "evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples."

"It was the beginning of healing. It was truly the sense of where the candle was lit, and everybody took a deep breath aside and said, 'OK, now we can start to heal," said Chartrand.

He said while other officials protected members of the church who participated in abuses in residential schools, Francis committed the church to "do the right thing."

"He said he has God to forgive him. He has us to forgive him and forgive the church. So I'll never forget … that request and that promise," said Chartrand.

He said he hopes the next pope will carry on with the change Francis sparked in the church.

Laid 'clear path' for reconciliation: Fontaine

Phil Fontaine, who is a former head of both the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and Assembly of First Nations and was one of the first people to speak publicly about the abuse he suffered at residential schools, also said he hopes the next pontiff will be as "progressive" as Francis. 

Fontaine called the Pope a "very strong ally within the church" and said he was an advocate for reconciliation, best expressed by overcoming resistance from inside the church to deliver his apology. 

"He described … the trauma of the residential school experience by saying that was genocide — not cultural genocide, [but] genocide," Fontaine told CBC at the Vatican on Saturday.

"We owe him much more than we could ever hope and think about."

Before his death, Francis appointed a senior Vatican official to engage with Indigenous people for the repatriation of sacred objects and artifacts that were stolen. 

"With this clear path that's been laid out by Francis and as a result of reconciliation, true healing will occur," he said. "I'm hopeful." 

While there is much more work to do in Canada, the Vatican needs to keep playing a role to continue Francis's work toward reconciliation, said Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, the current national chief of the Assembly of First Nations and a member of Pinaymootang First Nation in Manitoba.

"An apology, that was the first chapter, and we have to write more chapters together," she said after attending Francis's funeral in Rome on Saturday.

"That means facing the hard truth of what had happened in the past, but also looking forward and saying, 'How do we make the world a better place?'"

Returning stolen ceremonial artifacts still in the possession of the church is one step, Woodhouse Nepinak said. So is working with Indigenous communities toward revitalizing languages stripped away in residential schools.

While many Indigenous people still have a difficult relationship with the Catholic Church, Francis pushed the institution to become more inclusive and take responsibility for the mistakes it made in the past, said Woodhouse Nepinak.

"There's a lot of work that he left undone," she said. "Those conversations are not always easy, but they're so necessary."