“It was the worst years of my life; I guess you could say it destroyed me.”
That’s how Jerry Wood, a man who spent eleven years as one of 150,000 aboriginal children pulled from his home, and placed in residential schools, looks at his time in the residential school system.
“I was trying to drown my experience in residential schools from the sexual abuse, the physical abuse, mental abuse, spiritual abuse that I went through,” Wood said.
On Monday, Wood, now an elder, was in the room to hear words he had been waiting decades for – when Archbishop Richard Smith of the Archdiocese of Edmonton issued a formal apology for the church’s role in the schools.
“We the Catholic bishops of Alberta and Northwest Territories apologize to those who experienced sexual and physical abuse in residential schools under Catholic Administration,” Smith said.
“That’s what I wanted to hear, to say I’m sorry,” Wood said. “I’m sorry, you know, I thought I’d never hear that word coming from them.”
The apology Monday is just the latest of a few issued in recent years – in 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology, then the next year the Pope acknowledged wrongdoing.
In addition, the apology comes weeks ahead of the final event by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a conference to promote healing – set to run from March 27 to 30.
“I think anyone, bishops included, want to do whatever we can to reach out and foster that healing and reconciliation and to learn from what has happened in the past,” Smith said.
Smith also said another apology will be issued at the conference.
With files from Brenna Rose
