ANKARA

The pope needs to issue an apology for the role the Catholic Church played in the residential school system, according to Canada’s indigenous services minister.

Marc Miller said it is “shameful” that an apology has not been issued to date as he expressed frustration about the Vatican’s stance in the matter, according to Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.

"There is a responsibility that lies squarely on the shoulders of the [Catholic] council of bishops in Canada," he said Wednesday. "Certainly, my Catholic friends that I speak to believe it should be done."

A papal apology was one of 94 recommendations made by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that ruled in 2018 that residential schools constituted a “cultural genocide.”

The school system that operated between 1830-1996 was created to remove Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and assimilating them into the dominant White culture "to kill the Indian in the child."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally asked the Pope to consider such a gesture during a visit to the Vatican in 2017.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for residential schools, even though he has not shied away from recognizing injustices faced by Indigenous people around the world.