Next pope will inherit Pope Francis' mixed legacy with Indigenous people

Vatican City | Whoever succeeds Pope Francis will inherit his momentous and controversial legacy of relations with Indigenous people throughout the Americas.

Some found Francis to be a reconciling figure, others a disappointment. Even those who applauded the actions he took during his 12-year papacy said they were just a beginning, and that his successor will need to continue to work toward healing.

Francis, who died April 21, at age 88 issued a historic apology for the “catastrophic” legacy of residential schools in Canada and oversaw the repudiation of the “Doctrine of Discovery” — the collective name given to a series of 15th-century papal decrees that legitimised colonial-era seizure of Native lands.

But some Indigenous leaders criticised him as slow to fully recognise the traumatic impact of Catholic missionary efforts and for canonising Junipero Serra, the 18th-century missionary accused of mistreating Native people in present-day California.

Even Francis' admirers says his work is unfinished “It's 150 years of trauma. It's going to take us a bit of time to recover,” said Wilton Littlechild, a residential school survivor and former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations in Canada. “He put us on a real strong path to reconciliation, but it can't stop.” Perhaps the most dramatic of Francis' encounters with the Indigenous community occurred on a July day in 2022 in Maskwacis, a small town in the Canadian province of Alberta and the hub of four Cree nations.

There, Pope Francis paid respects at a cemetery near a former residential school for Indigenous children. He then delivered a long-sought apology for Catholic complicity in the 19th- and 20th-century residential school system for the First Nations, Metis and Inuit people of Canada.

“I am deeply sorry, sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonising mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said.

The Rev. Cristino Bouvette, an Alberta priest of Cree and Metis heritage who was liturgical coordinator for the pope's Canada visit, recalled hearing the applause and seeing some onlookers weeping.

Bouvette said his late grandmother had attended a residential school and never felt the pope needed to apologise — but he, too, began to weep.

“My thoughts immediately turned to my grandmother," he said. “I think she would have been deeply touched had she been alive to hear those words herself, despite her not thinking it needed to happen.” The first pope from the Americas also offered an apology in Bolivia for Catholic complicity in colonialism and he supported the use of Indigenous languages and customs at Catholic liturgies in Mexico.

Francis “was a human being who tried to love and respect and honour people,” advocating for the poor and migrants, said Valentin Lopez, chairperson of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band in California. “But regarding the Native Americans specifically, there's a number of negative items that were pretty much totally ignored by the pope, and for that we're disappointed.”

Kenneth Deer — a Mohawk activist from Canada who was part of a Native delegation that urged Francis in 2016 to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery — saw Francis as "very progressive, and he could have been more progressive if the Vatican wouldn't hold him back.” Deer noted that while the church was unwilling to state that the residential schools were an act of genocide, Francis was willing to say that in personal remarks.

“That's who you want to listen to, the unscripted Pope Francis,” Deer said.

Francis' successor will need “to continue working, continue to evolve,” said Deer. “You have to change.”

'Mixed messages'. Some activists said that was a problem Visiting Bolivia in July 2015, Francis asked forgiveness “not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the Native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.” Later that year in his only US visit, Francis officially declared Serra to be a saint.

Many Native activists lambasted the canonisation, calling the missionary priest a prime culprit in what Francis had just apologised for in Bolivia — complicity with destructive colonisation.

Serra founded California's historic missions, where thousands of Native Americans were converted. But some were also whipped for misbehaving or trying to flee. The missions became centres for horrific disease outbreaks, with mass fatalities.

“Saintly people are supposed to live lives that we are supposed to emulate,” Lopez said. “How can those actions be considered saintly?” Lopez, whose Amah Mutsun Tribal Band includes descendants of those who lived in the spheres of influence of two California missions, had written multiple times to Pope Francis, unsuccessfully urging him to cancel the canonisation.

Defenders of Serra's canonisation said he wasn't perfect but had exemplary qualities. Francis contended that Serra actually defended “the dignity of the Native community” from the threat of worse treatment by secular Spanish colonial authorities.

Historic Canada trip

In 2022, Francis addressed the Catholic Church's operation of residential schools, which shattered Indigenous children's ties to family and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Canada's National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation documented more than 4,000 child deaths at residential schools, and some experts believe the number is much higher.

Della Lizotte, whose parents attended a residential school, welcomed Francis' apology.

“For me, it felt genuine,” said Lizotte, an elder in Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples in Edmonton, Alberta, which the pope also visited. “I just wish it had been sooner, because my parents had already passed away and they would have really appreciated hearing that.” The event sparked controversy when Littlechild presented Pope Francis with a ceremonial headdress. Historically, the headdress has been a symbol of respect, worn by Native American war chiefs and warriors. Some Native commentators found the image jarring.

Littlechild said the pope's apology enabled him to forgive the church for his own experiences during 14 years in a residential school.

“When I gave him the headdress as a gift from our people, I told him, I forgive for what happened to me as a child,'” he said. “And many people have told me since then that it was a new journey for them to heal from the traumas.”

Doctrine of Discovery

In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, which legitimised colonial-era seizure of Native lands by Spain and Portugal. The concept forms the basis of some property laws today in the United States.

The Vatican said the related decrees, or papal bulls, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.