Mexico’s snub to King Felipe rekindles colonialism row with Spain: President-elect refuses to invite Spanish king to her inauguration after lack of apology for crimes of conquest

I'm no fan of monarchy–hell, I intensely dislike social hierarchies of any sort–but this might be the kind of thing a monarch might actually be well-suited to do. Elected politicians are unlikely to directly acknowledge the historical evils perpetrated by their predecessors, since that's bound to make some considerable portion of the electorate pissy and jeopardize their positions of authority and prestige.

Monarchs don't need to care about such things, at least not to the degree of a president or prime minister. Hypothetically, they are well situated to make uncomfortable and unpopular statements, since there's theoretically no way to lose their positions. If they have to exist at all, let them act as moral advocates that stand outside the tumult of popular opinion. That more of them don't do this says something about either the nature of hereditary position or the morals of the individuals in those positions. I'm not sure what it says, but it says something.

To my knowledge, there's never been an official acknowledgement that the Spanish Empire did horrific things in the name of colonialism and the Catholic faith. "Endless apologies" are one thing; never once admitting that your nation perpetrated some of the most horrific acts of genocide in history is something else. If we as a species are ever going to definitively shut the door on the possibility of such things happening again, some admission that "yeah, we fucked up" is probably necessary.

As you say, apologies don't mean an awful lot, especially when they're rote and have been litigated incessantly. I don't know that is the case here, though.