Pope Francis apologizes for abuse of Indigenous children in Canada residential schools News
gunthersimmermacher / Pixabay
Pope Francis apologizes for abuse of Indigenous children in Canada residential schools

Pope Francis Monday issued an apology to the Indigenous community of Canada for the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse Indigenous children suffered in religious boarding schools for almost 150 years.

Beginning in the 1800s, thousands of Indigenous children were systematically taken from their homes and families and placed into residential boarding schools. These schools, some of which were operated by Catholic missionaries, sought to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children into Catholicism.

Pope Francis promised that an investigation into the actions of the Church will take place, saying:

An important part of this process will be to conduct a serious investigation into the facts of what took place in the past and to assist the survivors of the residential schools to experience healing from the traumas they suffered.

Pope Francis is currently on an Apostolic Journey to Canada set to conclude this Saturday, July 30.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.