U.S. Catholic Church Formally Apologizes For Role In Indian Boarding Schools

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has formally apologized for the church’s role in inflicting trauma and abuse on generations of Native American children and families through its participation in Indian boarding schools.

By a 181-2 vote, the conference on Friday approved a 56-page document titled “Keeping Christ’s Sacred Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry.” In it, the bishops lamented that “many Indigenous Catholics have felt a sense of abandonment” by church leaders who don’t understand “their unique cultural needs.” The bishops also acknowledged the role the church played in running Indian boarding schools.

“The Church recognizes that it has played a part in traumas experienced by Native children,” the bishops said.

Elsewhere in the document, they said, “We apologize for the failure to nurture, strengthen, honor, recognize, and appreciate those entrusted to our pastoral care.”

For nearly a century, from 1869 through the 1960s, the U.S. government removed hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children from tribal lands and forced them into boarding schools to assimilate them into white culture. Children endured abuse and violence and even died at these schools, all the while being cut off from their families.

Most of the more than 500 Indian boarding schools were run by the U.S. government, but the Catholic Church operated more than 80 of them.

Pope Francis issued a historic apology to Indigenous people in 2022 for the “deplorable” abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools. But the new document from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops marks the church’s first official apology to Indigenous people in the United States.

On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, key senators praised the U.S. Catholic bishops for acknowledging the church’s complicity in what was effectively an era of cultural genocide.

“Through a nearly unanimous vote, the Catholic Church’s decision to issue this apology demonstrates a commitment to truth and accountability,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said in a statement.

“The trauma inflicted during the Indian Boarding School era left deep scars on Indigenous communities, including in Alaska, that are still seen today,” said Murkowski. “Those impacted by these horrific actions deserve to find healing and the acknowledgement of the wounds inflicted from these policies is but one step toward doing just that.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, similarly said that the church’s apology ”can be a powerful tool in the healing process.” But, he said, there’s a lot more work to do.

He specifically urged the Senate to pass pending legislation, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, which would create a federal commission to conduct a full inquiry into the assimilative polices of Indian boarding schools. Schatz and Murkowski passed the bill out of their committee unanimously last year, but it hasn’t gotten a full Senate vote.

“The deep trauma inflicted on Native children by Indian Boarding Schools, including those run by the Catholic Church, is a dark stain in our history and one we, as a country, are just beginning to reckon with,” Schatz said in a statement.

“We still have more work to do to uncover the true extent of this painful history,” he said. “I will continue to work hard to quickly move the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act through the Senate and signed into law.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the country’s first Indigenous Cabinet secretary, has used her role to raise awareness of what actually happened at Indian boarding schools. She has talked about the generational trauma within her own family, as her grandmother described “the pain and loneliness she endured when the trains took her away from her family.”

In 2021, Haaland launched the Interior Department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to examine the legacy of Indian boarding school policies and their intergenerational impact. As part of this effort, she embarked on a project called The Road to Healing, traveling around the country to meet with survivors of the boarding school system and asking to hear their stories for a permanent oral history collection.

“I want you all to know that I’m with you on this journey. I will listen. I will grieve with you. I will weep. And I will feel your pain,” Haaland said in November 2023, at the final stop of The Road to Healing in Bozeman, Montana.

“The healing that can help our communities will not be done overnight, but it can be done,” she continued. “This is one step, among many, that we will take to strengthen and rebuild the bonds within Native communities that federal Indian boarding school policies set out to break. Those steps have the potential to alter the course of our future.”