ROME, Italy — The colonization of the Americas by the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese constituted “genocide,” Pope Francis told reporters during his flight back from Canada on Friday.
During his in-flight presser, a journalist from the Canadian Press told the pontiff that the indigenous people who heard his apology for the Church’s participation in the residential school system “lamented the fact that the term genocide was not used,” and pressed the pope to know whether he would use that term and “acknowledge that members of the Church participated in this genocide.”
In response, Francis hastened to insist that he did not intentionally eschew the word “genocide” in describing the historic abuses of the native Canadians
Pope Francis (L), wearing a headdress, kisses
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