Pope Francis’s words will not be enough for the Mapuche people, or at least for their representatives who are active in the struggle. He spoke on the subject during the mass he celebrated Wednesday at the airport of Maquehue, in an ancestral indigenous territory, now owned by the Chilean Air Force and once used during the Pinochet dictatorship as a torture and detention center.
The Pope recalled that it was a place where there have been “grave violations of human rights,” and he turned his thoughts to “all those who suffered and died,” and “all those who each day carry on their shoulders the burden of so much injustice.” But he did not even hint at the claims of the Mapuche regarding that territory or ask for forgiveness for the role played by the Church in the history of violence against indigenous peoples.
Neither will Francis’s appeals to overcome confrontations and divisions, or his invitation to unity as a “reconciled diversity” based on “listening and recognition,” to be distinguished from ”uniformity” or “forced integration,” make much sense to a people whose land was stolen by the Chilean state and whose rights have been denied.
