The incoming archbishop, Richard Smith, co-ordinated Pope Francis’s historic visit to Canada in 2022, when the pontiff, who is now in critical condition, apologized for the church’s treatment of Indigenous people
The 400,000-member Vancouver Catholic archdiocese will continue to stress reconciliation with First Nations people under its new leader, who the Vatican named Tuesday.
The incoming archbishop, Richard Smith, co-ordinated Pope Francis’s historic visit to Canada in 2022, when the pontiff apologized for the treatment of Indigenous people who had for over a century attended the country’s federally funded, church-run residential schools.
During his 17 years as Vancouver archbishop, Miller has formally apologized on at least two occasions for what happened to many of the roughly 125,000 Indigenous students who attended residential schools, 40 per cent of which were run by Catholic priests and nuns.
Last year Miller signed a “sacred covenant” with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, where in 2021 ground-penetrating radar found 215 potential unmarked graves near a one-time residential school site. That announcement was key to the Pope coming to Canada the following year, on what was called a “penitential pilgrimage.”
The Vatican released the news that Smith would be Miller’s replacement, after being approved by Pope Francis, who is in critical but stable condition in Rome.
Vatican officials said Tuesday that Francis is busy getting important work done, including approving decrees for two new saints and five people for beatification, the first step toward possible sainthood.
In a news conference in Edmonton on Tuesday, Smith said his personal relationship with the Pope “intensified” in 2022 when he led a delegation of Indigenous people, many from Kamloops, to Rome.
That visit, said Smith, lead to Francis, who was in poor health even then, foregoing other international trips to instead fly to Canada, where he apologized for the damage caused by residential schools, where abuse, harsh conditions and malnutrition were widespread.
The Pope was visibly pained by what he learned from First Nations people in Canada, Smith said Tuesday: “He wears his heart on his sleeve.”
On the plane flight back to Rome from Canada, Francis responded to a journalist’s question by referring to what had happened to First Nations people as a “genocide.”
After leading noon mass at Holy Rosary Cathedral in downtown Vancouver on Tuesday, Miller said the Pope is in serious condition but able to focus on continuing issues: “The Pope works right through. He doesn’t give up.”
The “sacred covenant” signed last year with First Nations people near Kamloops, he said, includes a commitment to working together to open the church’s archives on residential schools, as well as providing mental-health support as part of a $2.5 million healing fund.
“It’s not glamorous, but it’s a step along the way,” Miller said.
“If you notice during all his official speeches during his visit, he didn’t use that term. On the plane, after a long day, he used it,” said Miller.
He noted the pontiff has sometimes referred to what happened at the residential schools as “cultural genocide.” Almost all the Indigenous schools were closed by the 1970s.
Smith, who has been archbishop for Edmonton since 2007, serves as a member of the Canadian Catholic Indigenous Council, and as chairman of the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on Indigenous Issues. Born in 1959 in Halifax, where he went on to work as a priest, Smith is also a member of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute.