The Catholic Church moves slowly, but it does move.

It took the church more than half a century to say sorry for the complicity of some Christians in the Holocaust. It took 500 years for it to express regret for persecuting Protestants during the Reformation. And Pope John Paul II apologized for atrocities committed during the Crusaders’ attack on Constantinople almost eight centuries after they happened.

By that glacial standard, Pope Francis appears to be moving at lightning speed toward a papal apology for the church’s role in Canada’s residential school tragedy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican this week to say that Francis seemed open to the idea and had offered to work with him on a “path forward” toward a formal apology.

The prime minister deserves credit for pressing the Pope directly on this important issue, sensitive as it is for the church. And Canada’s Catholic bishops should do all they can to clear the way for the Pope to issue a public apology as soon as possible – if at all possible on Canadian soil.

Such a move, however delayed, would carry great symbolic weight. Catholic organizations were responsible for running about three-quarters of the residential schools, whose legacy of sexual, physical and mental abuse still hangs heavily over Canada’s relations with its Indigenous peoples.

Other churches – the Anglicans, Presbyterians and United Church – long ago made their formal apologies for taking part in the residential school system. But the Catholic Church has invoked a variety of legalistic excuses to avoid making the full, forthright, authoritative apology that is called for, considering the lasting damage wrought by the schools.

Some 16 Catholic dioceses and several dozen religious communities were associated with residential schools in Canada going back to the late 19th century, as part of a government-sponsored effort to assimilate Indigenous people. But the bishops’ organization has emphasized that all those entities are legally responsible for their own actions. The church as a whole and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, they say, were not associated with the schools.

The Catholic groups involved with the schools issued their own apology for abuse way back in 1991. And in 2006 they were part of the class action settlement reached with survivors of the schools.

The missing piece is a formal apology from the church as a whole, right from the top. The bishops may well be correct that the church cannot be held legally responsible. But they should look beyond that to the good they and the Pope could do by issuing a frank, public expression of remorse along with a pledge to help heal the wounds.

The papacy has already taken a step along this road. In 2009 Pope Benedict, Francis’s predecessor, expressed “sorrow” for suffering in the residential school system, and offered his “sympathy and prayerful solidarity” for those who suffered abuse.

That came during a private meeting with Canadian bishops and Indigenous leaders at the Vatican. It wasn’t the public apology that the 80,000 survivors of residential schools have long sought.

Pope Francis should take a big step forward by complying with the recommendation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that a full papal apology be issued on Canadian soil, so that survivors and other Indigenous people can be present to witness it.

Getting the Pope, of all people, to come all that way to make such a dramatic gesture sounds like a major undertaking. But if any Catholic leader might be prepared to do it, it would be Francis, who has shown particular sensitivity to issues of social justice.

He set an important precedent two years ago when he visited Bolivia and issued an historic apology for the “grave sins” of the church against Indigenous peoples during the colonization of the Americas. “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” he told a summit meeting of Indigenous leaders.

It would be entirely in keeping with that statement for the Pope to express regret and apologize for the church’s role in Canada’s residential school system.

In fact, CBC News reported late last year that some Catholic bishops and Indigenous leaders were working to bring Francis to Saskatchewan this year to issue such an apology for what happened in the residential schools. Archbishop Donald Bolen of Regina was part of that effort and told CBC at the time, “We need to heal and move on.”

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As it turned out, that visit never happened. But in light of Trudeau’s visit this week and Francis’s apparent willingness to consider an apology, it’s time for the bishops and others to revive efforts to right this historic wrong.

The Catholic Church as a whole should move beyond arguments over who is legally responsible for past actions. For its own sake and the sake of the survivors, it should get on the right side of efforts to heal the wounds that still remain.

Much better to do it late than to continue dodging an historic responsibility.

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