On Monday, Pope Francis will make a historic personal apology to Indigenous survivors of abuse committed over many years at Catholic-run institutions when he visits a former residential school in Canada.
The head of the 1.3 billion Catholics in the world came in Edmonton the day before for a six-day visit that had been eagerly anticipated by the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities.
The 85-year-old pontiff’s trip, which he has described as a “penitential journey,” is primarily to apologize to survivors for the Church’s role in the scandal that a national truth and reconciliation commission has called “cultural genocide.”
About 150 000 First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children were placed by the Canadian government into 139 residential schools managed by the Church between the late 1800s and the 1990s, where they were separated from their family, language, and culture.
Thousands of children are thought to have perished from disease, hunger, or neglect, and many suffered from physical and sexual abuse at the hands of headmasters and teachers.
Prior to Francis’ six-day visit, a team of indigenous peoples visited the Vatican in April and had a meeting with the pope. The pope then officially apologised.
But since the land of their ancestors holds a special value for the survivors and their families, doing it once more on Canadian soil will be of great significance.
In the community of Maskwacis, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Edmonton, where the former Ermineskin residential school—one of the biggest in Canada—was situated until its closing in 1975, Francis is scheduled to arrive at 10:00 am (1600 GMT) on Monday.
He will give his first speech in Spanish to an estimated 15,000 people after offering a silent prayer in the cemetery. Former pupils from all over the nation are scheduled to attend.
At 4:30 pm, Francis will travel to one of Edmonton’s oldest parishes, the Sacred Heart Catholic Church of the First Peoples, where he will address Indigenous groups once more.
“I hope that this visit is the beginning of a change in history, a change in the way business is going to be done, and a way for us to begin our healing journey,” George Arcand Jr, the grand chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, said on national television.
“I asked the Pope to walk with us and create this new road that needs to be created.”
At the locations of the former schools, more than 1 300 unmarked graves have been found since May 2021, shocking Canadians around the nation.
Slowly but surely, the nation is starting to acknowledge this protracted, tragic period in its past.
Even though it is eagerly awaited, some survivors and their families are divided on the papal visit. The return of some Indigenous artefacts that have been kept in the Vatican for years is one symbolic action that many anticipate Francis to take.
“It means a lot to me” that he came, said Deborah Greyeyes, 71, noting her “entire reserve” was going to hear Francis speak.
Greyeyes, an Edmonton resident, is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, the largest Indigenous group in Canada.
“I think we have to forgive, too, at some point,” she told AFP. But “a lot of stuff was taken away from us.”
Tuesday after celebrating mass in front of tens of thousands of worshippers in Edmonton, Francis will travel to the Lac Sainte Anne, a significant pilgrimage site.
He will complete his journey in Iqaluit, the capital of Canada’s northern region of Nunavut, which is also home to the country’s biggest Inuit population, after spending the weekend of July 27–29 in Quebec City.
Before leaving for Italy, he will speak with former residents of residential schools there.
Francis, who has been dealing with knee discomfort that has necessitated the use of a cane or wheelchair on recent trips, said that the journey to Edmonton was the longest he had taken since 2019.
The pope used a lifting platform to board the aircraft on Sunday while using a wheelchair. He was also using a wheelchair on the airport in Edmonton.
Following John Paul II, who visited Canada twice in the 1980s and once again in 2002, Francis is the second pope to do so.