A 2021 *New York Times* article about the purported discovery of a mass grave filled with the remains of 215 Indigenous children caused an uproar that led to a public apology from the Pope last month.

What Lies Beneath

The revelation of a “mass grave” filled with Indigenous children convulsed Canada. But there were no mass graves—or revelations

By Wesley Yang

The opening tableau of a recent New York Times piece about Pope Francis’s self-described “penitential pilgrimage” through Canada, which concluded this past weekend, captured the atmospherics well. Francis spoke “in a pow wow circle, a covered ring surrounding an open space used for traditional dancing and drumming circles,” surrounded by “teepees, campfires and booths labeled ‘Mental Health and Cultural Support.’”

He was in Canada, as he put it, to “humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” with reference to what the piece’s lede characterized as “church-run residential schools that became gruesome centers of abuse, forced assimilation, cultural devastation and death for over a century.”