She attended a residential school in Churchill, Manitoba in 1967-1968 and was sexually abused there. It is a remarkable story because she forgave, and says she gained experience on how to deal with it herself. She also became involved in the issue of mental wellness, and it developed into her career. Through the decades she has spoken on the issue and provided direct mental wellness support during extremely traumatic hearings for Inuit. Notable were the special hearings held by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples on the High Arctic Exiles in Ottawa in 1996. Martha was there to console Inuit giving testimony.
Similarly, during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) national events, Martha provided counselling to victims who publicly gave testimony of their experiences at the schools. More recently during the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls National Inquiry, she did the same.
So, it was a blessing that she was invited to be on the Inuit delegation to the Vatican in late March and early April 2022, for an audience with Pope Francis. The visit by Inuit, M\u00e9tis, and First Nations delegations had been postponed from December 2021 because of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Martha was invited to be a support worker to the Inuit delegation, but she also became a delegate, and in this way, she was able to speak to the Pope directly for five minutes \u2013 along with the other Inuit delegates \u2013 on Monday March 28.
She describes what that meeting was like. \u201cPope Francis was greeting us with the Bishops. We shook his hand. We sat down. We were on the right side of the room. The Bishops were on the left. The Pope was in front with his chair in a semi-circle. Rhoda Ungalaq lit the qulliq. We all spoke one by one. Natan (Obed) did the closing remarks. And then the Holy Father spoke. You could tell that he had listened to us. He had genuinely listened, that\u2019s how I felt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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By Stephen Hendrie Martha Greig was taught growing up, \u201cWhatever wrongdoing is done to me, I have to forgive for me to be OK, that I [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14168,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"taqralik-issues":[421,126],"class_list":["post-14165","taqralikonline","type-taqralikonline","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","taqralik-issues-2022-winter","taqralik-issues-winter"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline\/14165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/taqralikonline"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline\/14165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14210,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline\/14165\/revisions\/14210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"taqralik-issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralik-issues?post=14165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Asked about what she said during her five minutes Martha says, \u201cFirst of all I was very humbled and honoured to have the opportunity to meet with him. I told him I was a former residential school student, and that I was a lay reader for the Anglican Church in Kuujjuaq. I told him about my involvement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with all the former students. I said that people are hurting for too long, and they need an apology, and not just an apology, but they need resources, because there has to be healing, and there has to be forgiveness on both parts \u2013 the victims and the perpetrators \u2013 for people to heal.\u201d
Asked if Inuit in all Nunavik communities were affected by the residential schools, Martha explained he nature of the trauma. \u201cInuit are affected in many ways, such as losing their culture, loss of parental skills \u2013 they lack that when they are raising their kids. It\u2019s intergenerational trauma this is into our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. That\u2019s why I emphasize that there needs to be forgiveness on both parts, because it takes too long. As a frontline worker we have to have patience for the former students to start talking about this because it\u2019s too painful. Some of them are still not talking about it. Instead of talking, they\u2019re still doing addictive stuff, which further delays the healing process. So that\u2019s why I said there\u2019s a need for resources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.makivvik.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/P1029037.jpg?resize=1024%2C575&ssl=1\")
Media reports of the delegation to Rome indicated they were working on an apology on Canadian soil, and that the audience with the Pope was to allow for Inuit, M\u00e9tis, and First Nations to tell the Pope directly what they had experienced, individually and collectively. Each group had a private audience with Pope Francis \u2013 Inuit and M\u00e9tis on Monday, and the First Nations on Thursday.
On Friday April 2nd, all delegations met with the Pope together. In a ceremony punctuated by Inuit drum dancing by David Serkoak, M\u00e9tis fiddlers, and First Nations dancing, Pope Francis delivered a lengthy reply to all delegations, which included a direct apology, unexpected at this time.
\u201cIt was very overwhelming to be in the room at that time,\u201d said Martha. \u201cI couldn\u2019t help but think of the victims. A lot of people are hurting. Many who wanted to hear are no longer alive. That was heavy and at the same time uplifting to hear. He didn\u2019t just say \u2018I am sorry,\u2019 he said, \u2018I am very, very sorry.\u2019 I myself, even as a support worker, I got emotional as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.makivvik.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/IMG_5378.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\")
All members of the delegations were given copies of the speech. Martha read out the passage with the apology, \u201cAll these things are contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for the deplorable conduct of those members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God\u2019s forgiveness, and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry. And I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops in asking your pardon.\u201d
Martha says she would have the apology translated into Inuktitut and read it at the church in Kuujjuaq. She granted a lengthy interview to Taqralik Magazine the week after returning from Rome. We thank her for her story, allowing us to experience the trip to the Vatican through her eyes. Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Canada to apologize on Canadian soil from July 24 \u2013 30, 2022. He will visit Iqaluit, Nunavut, during the visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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