24th July, 2022
Pope Francis landed in Canada on Sunday to kick off a five-day trip during which he will seek apology on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for the abuse that indigenous children endured at mostly church-run residential schools.
“This is a trip of penance. Let’s say that is its spirit,” the pope told reporters in his traditional comments after his flight took off from Rome.
He touched down in Edmonton in the western province of Alberta.
The Vatican News reported that the papal plane landed at 11:09 am local time at Edmonton International Airport after a more than ten hour flight from Rome where he left in the morning local time.
The arrival of the Pope with the journalists on board with him is to be followed with a brief welcome by civil and religious authorities, including Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, Salma Lakhani.
The Pope will then go to St. Joseph Seminary to rest after the long flight and the rest of the day there.
On Monday morning his first public encounters begin. He is expected to visit a former residential school and meet with indigenous peoples on Monday.
He is also visiting Quebec City and Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut. He will depart on Friday.
Aboard the papal plane, the pope said he yearned to visit Ukraine in his efforts to try and bring an end to the five-month-old war that he has repeatedly decried. read more
“I have a great desire to go to Kyiv,” the pope said when asked about a possible future trip to Ukraine.
In an exclusive interview earlier this month, the pontiff told Reuters that he hoped to be able to go to Moscow and Kyiv soon after his trip to Canada. read more
The first full day of his Canadian tour will be dedicated to indigenous peoples and the apology, with a Mass to be held in Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium on Tuesday.
Between 1881 and 1996 more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and brought to residential schools. Many children were starved, beaten and sexually abused in a system that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”
While Canada’s leaders have known about high numbers of children dying at the schools since 1907, the issue was thrust to the fore with the discovery of suspected unmarked graves at or near former residential school sites last year.
In response to pressure stemming from those discoveries, the pope apologised for the Catholic church’s role in the schools earlier this year during a visit by indigenous delegates to the Vatican. read more
Now he is coming to apologize on Canadian soil.
But survivors and indigenous leaders have said they want more.
Many have called for financial compensation, the return of indigenous artefacts, the release of school records, support for extraditing an accused abuser.
They also want a 15th-century doctrine justifying colonial dispossession of indigenous people in the form of a papal bull, or edict rescinded.