Pope Francis left on Sunday for a visit to Canada to reiterate his plea for forgiveness for the church’s role in the tragedy of the indigenous shelters.
The Pope’s plane took off from Rome shortly after 9 a.m. The 85-year-old Argentine pope, who is in a wheelchair and suffering from pain in his right knee, had to use a lift to get on, according to a journalist.
A “Way of Reconciliation”
With more than ten flight hours, it is the longest journey since 2019 for the high priest, whose pain forces him to use a cane or a wheelchair to get around. François will be accompanied in particular by his head of diplomacy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Before leaving, the pope addressed a message on Twitter to his “dear brothers and sisters in Canada.” “I come to you to meet the indigenous people. I hope that, with the grace of God, my penitential pilgrimage can contribute to the path of reconciliation already taken. Please join me in prayer,” he wrote.
This visit is primarily dedicated to the Aborigines, Native American ancestors who make up 5% of Canada’s population and identify with three groups: Amerindian or First Nations, Métis and Inuit. Between the late 1800s and the 1990s, around 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly enrolled in more than 130 boarding schools, institutions subsidized by the state but administered primarily by the Catholic Church. Cut off from their families, language and culture, they are often victims of violence. Up to 6,000 children lost their lives there. A “cultural genocide” in a country where the discovery of more than 1,300 anonymous graves in 2021 sent a generational shockwave, according to a national commission of inquiry.
This trip raises great expectations among the indigenous population, who hope that the Pope will renew his historic apology made in the Vatican in April. The Argentine Jesuit could also make symbolic gestures, such as bringing back indigenous art objects that have been kept in the Vatican for decades. “This historic journey is an important part of the healing journey,” but “much remains to be done,” George Arcand Jr., grand chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, said at a news conference Thursday in Edmonton. “The events of the next week could open wounds for the survivors,” warned Irvin Bull, chief of the Louis Bull Cree tribe.
” Too late “
After a rest day on Sunday, François is scheduled to meet with indigenous people for the first time on Monday morning in Maskwacis, about a hundred kilometers south of Edmonton, where up to 15,000 people are expected. Alberta was the province with the largest number of residential schools. “I want a lot of people to come” to “hear that it’s not made up,” says Charlotte Roan, 44, who is sitting on a bench in Maskwacis.
Others look at the event with bitterness. “It’s a little late for me because a lot of people have suffered,” laments Linda McGilvery, 68, near Saint-Paul (200 km east of Edmonton), who spent eight years of her childhood in a boarding school. “I’ve lost a lot of my culture, of my lineage, it’s many years of loss,” laments this woman from the Cree Nation of Saddle Lake, who “will not make a detour” to see the Pope.
On Monday afternoon, the spiritual leader of the 1.3 billion Catholics is scheduled to deliver a second speech at the First People’s Sacred Heart Church in Edmonton. On Tuesday he has to celebrate mass at an Edmonton stadium before heading to Lac Sainte-Anne, site of an important annual pilgrimage. He then planned to reach Quebec on July 27-29 and then stop in Iqaluit (Nunavut), a city in Canada’s far north in the arctic archipelago. In the intermediate cities, many roads are closed to the Pope’s travels, some of them aboard his papal chariot. In total, Francis is to deliver four speeches and four sermons, all in Spanish.
Francis is the second Pope to visit Canada, after John Paul II, who was there three times, in 1984, 1987 and 2002. In this country, where 44% of the population is Catholic, the Church is going through a crisis with a sharp decline in practice in recent years.