Meet the new Pope: Will Leo XIV follow Francis’s lead in Indigenous reconciliation?
Thousands cheer as new pontiff introduced Thursday at the Vatican in Rome
Pope Leo XIV greets thousands of Catholic faithful after being introduced Thursday as the new pontiff. He succeeds Pope Francis, who died last month. (Photo courtesy of the Vatican)
As Catholics worldwide celebrate their new Pope Leo XIV and look forward to seeing how he will lead the Roman Catholic Church, a question for Canadians might be: Will he pursue reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous Peoples the way his predecessor Pope Francis did.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, of Chicago — the first American to serve as pontiff in the nearly 2,000-year history of the Church — was elected by a conclave of cardinals over two days and four voting sessions at the Vatican in Rome.
His election was revealed midday Thursday before thousands of people who packed St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. It was announced that he has adopted the papal name of Leo XIV.
Rev. Barry Bercier of Iqaluit’s Our Lady of Assumption Roman Catholic Church says newly elected Pope Leo XIV will bring intellect and compassion to the papacy. (Photo by Daron Letts)
In news reports, observers said the name signals a move toward social justice based on the work of Pope Leo XIII, who was head of the Catholic Church from 1878 to 1903.
“When popes choose a name, it signals something about their vision of their role as pope,” said Rev. Barry Bercier, of Iqaluit’s Our Lady of Assumption Roman Catholic Church.
“I think this new Pope Leo’s aim is going to be aiming at doing something like that in a way that’s appropriate for the moment.”
Bercier noted that Prevost worked for years with Indigenous people in Peru before becoming pope.
“There’s more than a billion Catholics in the world, so he’s going to have his hands full. So I don’t know if he will say much explicitly about the situation here.”
In a news release Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, “Canada looks forward to working with His Holiness to build a world guided by solidarity, justice and sustainability.”
Prevost was ordained as a priest in 1982 and served the church for more than a dozen years in Peru. He was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2024 and moved to the Vatican to lead the office that approves the appointment of bishops around the world.
Pope Francis, who died April 21 at the age of 88 after serving 12 years as pontiff, met with seven Inuit delegates in Rome in March 2022 to discuss the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential school system.
The seven were part of an Indigenous delegation that travelled to the Vatican to also urge Francis to release residential school records and Indigenous artifacts that were held by the Church. They also invited the pontiff to visit Inuit Nunangat to apologize to residential school survivors.
Francis acted on that invitation and came to Canada for six days later that year in July on what he called his “pilgrimage of penance.”
In Alberta, he told a gathering that he was “deeply sorry” for the abuse some members of the Roman Catholic Church committed against Indigenous children in Canada’s residential school system.
On July 29, 2022, Francis visited Iqaluit at a gathering before several hundred people outside Nakasuk Elementary School. He also met privately inside the school with about 100 residential school survivors from Nunavut.
“I want to tell you how very sorry I am and to ask forgiveness for the evil perpetrated by not just a few Catholics in these schools who contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation,” Francis said before departing Iqaluit for Rome.
With files from Daron Letts
We really should start getting the church to start paying those tariff taxes?? No person or group with that endless amount of money shouldn’t be able to pay taxes, Right!!!
Why would Inuit reconcile with the Church (catholic or protestant, does not matter much) that stripped them away from their own spiritual and cultural practices ? To reconcile, you need to leave first. To decolonize, you need to start at the root of the problem and that is christian missionaries.
To say Inuit were stripped of their belief distorts the fact that most early converts to Christianity chose their new god because he appeared to offer things their old gods did not. The relative wealth of the Europeans suggested a god of abundance. This was also a god that freed them from an onerous system of taboos.
You say “To reconcile, you need to leave first.”
Really, says who?
I disagree with the characterization of Christianity as the root of our woes as Inuit. However, the original commenter is correct in that the first step to a resolution to problems is that we need to BREAK AWAY.
The issues we face are a result of the material relations of Settler-Colonialism. We have been colonized. There exists a much larger population of Settlers in the Americas. Their ruling class instills and imposes its authority through the mechanism of a Settler state, and the settler working classes carry out the will of their Masters at OUR expense.
The most basic pre-requisite of any settler society is, necessarily, the subjugation, displacement or eradication of the natives.
Christianity, much like any other ideological or religious institution, is simply an instrument of the settler state. Christian institutions worked tirelessly to justify and validate the occupation and theft of land, as well as the displacement and eradication of natives or native cultures.
You’re right lets kick out the settlers, and everything they’ve built, their tech, intellectual property, etc. Lets go back to living off the land fending for ourselves, with no help whatsoever. We can do this.
lIfe without internet , living in a iluvigak in the dark winters . your nuts !!!
Not everyone is going to agree on the need to ‘break away’. Christianity is deeply embedded in modern Inuit culture and identity. That may eventually fade, though I doubt a Marxist critique will get you there.
Certainly, Europeans brought overwhelming cultural and material power. Yet many Inuit embraced these forces as they pointed to an easier more prosperous life (which is the more effective hunting tool, a rifle or amulet?). Many of your contemporaries, perhaps the majority, agree and believe integration is the only path forward.
Narratives around land theft and eradication have a valid place in historical critiques, and their emotive power remains a useful political bludgeon, even so they are miscalibrated reality today.
Nunavut Inuit agreed by a series of referendums and the NLCA to join Canada, ceding land in exchange for a series of benefits, making “stolen land” an anachronism.
Similarly, the idea that Canada is trying to ‘eradicate’ indigenous people today is absurd, and appeals mostly to a fringe of malcontents and political opportunists.
You would be asking many to give up a core part of their identity and culture. Are you prepared to do that?
It’s all history now, just teach the next generation and break the cycle. Got the money and apology. Time to move on.
Yep, you nailed it. The reconciliation project is done. Time to move on to the future.