Canadian Inuit Representatives to Speak with the Pope in March

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed and six other Inuit representatives will have a personal meeting with Pope Francis in late March, according to Nunatsiaq News.

The meeting is a part of the Indigenous delegation to the Vatican that also includes representatives from the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council. The delegation will be asking the Pope for an apology over the Catholic Church’s role in the Canadian residential schools system.

Approximately 60 per cent of the residentials schools in Canada were run by the Catholic Church. More than 1,200 unmarked graves have been found at former residential schools since the beginning of the 2021 summer.

Initially, the delegation was scheduled to meet the Pope in December 2021, but travel concerns over the Omicron variant of COVID-19 forced a postponement.