Absolutely. And of course the underlying point is that none of them should have been in the schools in the first place. The church in cooperation with the Canadian government literally stole them. Removed them from their families by force against the will of their families.

Those residential schools were mandatory. Converting to Catholicism was mandatory.

The existence of the schools and the fact the Roman Catholic Church (and other churches 20% of the time) ran them is a great outrage and would be so even if no child had ever been neglected to the point of death, even if no child had ever been beaten or raped.

The fact that neglect, death, and abuse were common is awful. But what is priest clearly doesn’t understand is that the schools were awful in concept.

The fact that the Roman Catholic Church ran those schools is heinous in concept.

No joy comes of stealing children from their families. It’s astonishing he cannot understand that.