WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools.
Wilton Littlechild remembers closing his eyes before Pope Francis led his first mass at the Vatican more than a decade ago.
He wanted to clearly hear every word.
As Francis spoke, Littlechild, a residential school survivor who served as commissioner for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, says he became still and thought: “I was listening to one of our elders.”
Littlechild says it was the first time he saw the head of the Catholic Church as an ally of Indigenous people.
“[Francis] was telling some of us traumatized as adults to seek to love … that’s how our elders talk to us. We grew up not knowing love. That stuck with me all the way until today,” Littlechild, 81, said following the death of Pope Francis on Monday.
At age six, Littlechild was sent to the Ermineskin Residential School in central Alberta, which was one of the largest in Canada. He spent 14 years at residential schools, where he suffered abuse.
He was an outstanding athlete in numerous sports, a lawyer, a grand chief of Alberta Treaty 6 and a member of Parliament. He also worked for decades with the United Nations, including on its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He was at the UN in New York on Monday when he learned about the Pope’s death.
Littlechild was part of an Indigenous delegation that travelled in 2022 to meet with Francis at the Vatican and ask for an apology for the church’s role in residential schools.
Survivors were given 30 minutes to speak, he said.
Littlechild said he told Francis about how he and his siblings were taken from their home and brought to a residential school.
He told the pontiff that sports saved him. “I said, ‘It gave me a way out of addictions, suicide’, you know, negative stuff I don’t even want to think about.”
He also told Francis that among Canadian provinces and territories, Alberta had the most church-operated residential schools and many survivors wanted an apology.
As survivors kept telling their stories, the Pope told his team to give them more time to speak.
When they left the meeting after three hours, Littlechild said Francis told him, “I’ll see you soon.”
Later in the week, during a final meeting with delegates, Francis said he was sorry.
“It was a collection of many stories that culminated in that call for those three little words to be spoken so that people could heal from their trauma, their childhood abuse, their addictions, violence in life,” Littlechild said.
Pope Francis also announced he planned to visit Canada, and he did later in the year, delivering the first apology on Canadian soil at Maskwacis, Alta., home to four reserves, including Ermineskin Cree Nation, where Littlechild is from.
Littlechild said he may have impacted the Pope’s decision to choose his community.
It was a historic day, and Littlechild said that the apology lifted a weight off his heart that he had been carrying as a survivor and after listening to 7,000 stories of abuse while with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“I was hearing my own personal story of abuse over and over and over again as commissioner. I didn’t want to do that job,” he said.
“And yet I’m so thankful that I did. That apology gave me an opportunity to forgive, which I did. And I told him that, ‘I forgave.”‘
At Maskwacis, Littlechild also gifted Francis a headdress worn by his grandfather, a former Cree chief. It was a moment seen by people around the world.
“It was kind of controversial for some,” Littlechild added.
Some survivors felt the Pope’s apology wasn’t enough and he didn’t deserve the honour. The papacy also had also discouraged anyone from replacing the papal tiara.
But Littlechild said Pope Francis gave permission for it to be placed on his head.
Littlechild travelled to Iqaluit for the Pope’s last stop on the “penitential pilgrimage” in Canada.
It was the last time he spoke to Francis.
“I told him farewell. We talked about hockey.”
Pope Francis’s body taken to St. Peter’s Basilica in solemn procession
On Easter Sunday, Littlechild said he watched the Pope’s last public appearance on TV, where Francis was struggling to speak. He died the following morning.
Littlechild said he was very sad to hear of the death but happy Francis has found peace.
He said he has asked the Vatican for permission to attend the Pope’s funeral on Saturday.
“To have a friend leave you in this way is sad, and you’re at a loss of words.”
Francis restored respectful relationships with Indigenous people, Littlechild said.
“But I’m always told that we have a long way to go. And, yes, we do,” he said.
“Will the next pope elevate us to that next step?”
A national 24-hour Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419 for emotional and crisis referral services for survivors and those affected.
