Angie Crerar (Photo: Abby Zieverink/EverythingGP, staff)

By Abby Zieverink

Truth and Reconciliation

‘This is our beginning’: says Angie Crerar following apology from Pope Francis

Apr 7, 2022 | 5:00 AM

Grande Prairie’s Angie Crerar says after she heard Pope Francis apologize for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system, she felt a weight instantly lifted off her shoulders.

“Now it’s time to change, it’s time to heal, it’s time to work together. This is our beginning,” she said.

“I don’t feel any burden anymore. I feel light as a feather, my world is clear, my love, my everything, is the way it should be when I was a child. Happy, loved, protected, exactly how I feel.”

A delegation of First Nations, Métis, Inuit leaders, elders, and residential school survivors from across Canada went to the Vatican from March 28 to April 1 to speak with the pope directly to share their stories of abuse from the residential schools.

The visit was arranged not long after unmarked mass graves were found in B.C. and Saskatchewan.

Crerar was the Métis representative for Alberta. She says an apology from the Pope was something residential school survivors had been searching years for.

“When you trust, when you believe, and when you’re nice, if you work hard enough, you will make your dreams come true and it happened to me. It took 85 years, but it’s all worth it,” expressed Crerar.

She says hearing his apology in person was a dream come true.

“When he apologized to us, he meant it from his heart. We could feel it, his heart beating, vibrating, and especially to my own heart.”

“You don’t have to write down a thousand words or two thousand and say nothing, you can say one sentence with your whole heart and bang. That was tremendous, that was powerful, and I felt that we all did.”

Throughout the several meetings with Pope Francis over the course of the week, Crerar also asked him to look for the unmarked graves of the lost children — something Francis promised her he would do.

“I could feel him when he was holding me, I could feel his feelings, and he felt very, very sad about what happened to us,” she explained.

“It was the first time I felt since I was a child, that the first person ever really, really heard me, heard my pain.”

Pope Francis also promised he would come to Canada to apologize on Canadian soil, which Crerar says is something she is looking forward to.

“I can’t wait for everyone in Canada to meet him and see what we saw, what we witnessed, what we felt, Canada needs to see that because we all need that.”

Having the Métis National President, First Nations Chief, and Inuit Chief all together, united as one voice, Crerar says felt like another step towards healing.

“It was the first time I witnessed that they were all together. They had meetings, just about every day, they were united,” she explained.

“We separated after residential schools, but now, we started taking back control of our own lives, looking after each other, being together, working together, and especially realizing how important our people are to unite.”

Now being back home in Grande Prairie, Crerar expresses gratitude to everyone in the community who have supported her and made her realize how important life is and those who helped her to “take back control of her life.”

“When I came back to Grande Prairie, this is where my life started, with the people from the city council to the homeless people, they’re all one to me, and they all help each other, and I love it.”