Pope Francis on Sunday is scheduled to begin a visit to Canada. This trip is unlike any other in papal history: Expressing remorse over the church's role in the Indigenous residential school system is its primary purpose.
TORONTO — Pope Francis on Sunday is scheduled to begin a visit to Canada, where he will come face-to-face with one of the country’s core tragedies: the often-abusive residential schools, run with the help of the Catholic Church, designed to extinguish Indigenous culture and family ties.This long-awaited trip is unlike any other in papal history: Expressing remorse is its primary purpose.
“We want the truth about what happened at these schools to be shared to the public,” he said. “Everyone needs to know what happened to us, and that it will never happen again.”Beginning in the 19th century, at least 150,000 Indigenous children were separated from their families, sometimes forcibly, to attend residential schools, which were funded by the government and run by churches. The last school closed in the 1990s.
An unmarked gravesite drags a not-so-distant horror back into the spotlight. Is this a real reckoning? Organizers have said the itinerary was planned with the 85-year-old pontiff’s declining mobility in mind. Francis canceled a planned trip this month to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan to not jeopardize the health of his knee.His Canada visit begins in the prairie province of Alberta, which was home to the largest number of residential schools, and includes stops in Quebec City and the Arctic territory of Nunavut.
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