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Catholic Church Apologies

Overview

A dated list of the formal apologies, admissions of fault and requests for forgiveness made by popes on behalf of the Catholic Church, kept as a reference for the argument, made by Christopher Hitchens in The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World, that any defence of the Church's record has to begin with the apologies it has already had to make. Entries give the date the statement was made, not the date of the events apologised for.

Date: 22 February 1992
Pope: John Paul II
Description: At the House of Slaves on Gorée Island, Senegal, asked forgiveness for the part played by Christians in the Atlantic slave trade.

Date: 31 October 1992
Pope: John Paul II
Description: Acknowledged the Church's error in condemning Galileo Galilei and recognised his contributions to science, closing the commission set up in 1981 to review the case.

Date: 25 May 1995
Pope: John Paul II
Description: In the encyclical Ut Unum Sint, asked forgiveness for Catholic responsibility for the divisions among Christians since the Reformation. The Day of Pardon of 12 March 2000 returned to this, confessing sins against Christian unity and the use of violence in the service of truth, which covers the wars of religion.

Date: 29 June 1995
Pope: John Paul II
Description: In the Letter to Women, apologised for the Church's part in the historical marginalisation and oppression of women.

Date: 14 March 1996
Pope: John Paul II
Description: In a letter to the bishops of Rwanda, acknowledged that some Catholics, including clergy, had taken part in the 1994 genocide and said that they would answer for it, while maintaining that the Church as an institution bore no guilt. The Church's formal apology came on 20 March 2017, when Pope Francis, receiving President Paul Kagame at the Vatican, asked forgiveness for the sins and failings of the Church and its members during the genocide.

Date: 16 March 1998
Pope: John Paul II
Description: Issued We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, expressing repentance for the failures of the Church's sons and daughters during the Holocaust, while defending the record of Pius XII.

Date: 12 March 2000
Pope: John Paul II
Description: The Day of Pardon, held in St Peter's during the Jubilee Year. In a sweeping confession the Pope asked forgiveness for the sins of the Church's members across history, including the Crusades, the Inquisition, forced conversions, contempt for the Jews, the treatment of women and minorities, and abuses of power committed in the service of truth.

Date: 24 October 2001
Pope: John Paul II
Description: In a message marking the four hundredth anniversary of Matteo Ricci's arrival in Beijing, acknowledged errors and limits of past missionary work in China and the Church's association with European colonial powers, and asked forgiveness.

Date: 22 November 2001
Pope: John Paul II
Description: In the apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Oceania, apologised to victims of sexual abuse by clergy and religious in the Pacific region. It was the first papal apology to be delivered by e-mail.

Date: 19 March 2010
Pope: Benedict XVI
Description: In a pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, apologised to victims of clerical child abuse, acknowledged the failures of bishops in handling it, and said the victims' trust had been betrayed and their dignity violated.

Date: 24 September 2015
Pope: Francis
Description: At Vespers in St Patrick's Cathedral, New York, during his visit to the United States, expressed sorrow for clerical sexual abuse and for the harm done to victims; three days later, in Philadelphia, he met survivors and said that God weeps for what was done to them.

Date: 26 June 2016
Pope: Francis
Description: In a press conference on the flight back from Armenia, said that the Church should apologise to gay people for the way it had treated them, and should also ask forgiveness of the poor, of exploited women and of others it had marginalised.

Date: 1 April 2022
Pope: Francis
Description: Receiving a delegation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit representatives at the Vatican, apologised for the conduct of members of the Church in Canada's residential school system and the cultural destruction it caused.

Date: 25 July 2022
Pope: Francis
Description: At Maskwacis, Alberta, repeated and expanded the apology on Canadian soil, begging forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against Indigenous peoples and calling the policies behind the residential schools a disastrous error.

Sources

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