Pope Francis arrives in Canada for a week-long visit this weekend with one primary aim. He wishes to make amends and do penance for the part played by the Catholic Church in Canada in the suffering visited on Indigenous and First Nation children and their families through the residential school system.
At this week’s Sunday Angelus Francis made his purpose plain. “Next Sunday, God willing, I will leave for Canada; therefore, I wish now to address all the people of that country,” he said. “Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutes, have contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation that, in the past, have severely harmed indigenous communities in various ways."
Francis recalled a series of meetings he held in the Vatican in April with delegations from Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, during which he listened to their stories about life in the residential school system – a scheme for the forcible integration of indigenous children into Canadian culture by separating them from their families and communities and placing them in boarding schools.
During this series of meetings, he said, he expressed his “sorrow and solidarity for the harm they have suffered.”
“Now,” he said, “I am about to make a penitential pilgrimage, which I hope, with God's grace, will contribute to the journey of healing and reconciliation already undertaken.”
The Pope is scheduled to arrive in Edmonton, Alberta on 24 July. The next day, he will visit the community of Maskwacis, which was home to one of the largest residential schools in Canada, Ermineskin Residential School.
“The Holy Father will join former residential school students from across the country as part of a formal programme. Alberta is home to the largest number of former residential schools in Canada,” the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said.
In Edmonton, the Pope will also take part in an open-air mass at Commonwealth Stadium to mark the feast of St Anne on 26 July. He will then travel to Lac Ste Anne for the annual pilgrimage, there. The site bills itself as the largest annual Catholic gathering in Western Canada.
The next day, Pope Francis will travel to Quebec City, where he is expected to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor General Mary Simon and Indigenous leaders.
He will celebrate mass on 28 July at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, one of the oldest pilgrimage sites in North America. The bishops’ conference said as many as 15,000 people are expected to attend.
On the final day of his visit, Friday 29 July, the Pope is to have an early meeting with fellow members of the Jesuit order at the archbishop’s residence, then another meeting with a delegation of Indigenous peoples, also at the archbishop’s residence.
At 12:45, the Pope will depart Quebec and fly some five hours north to Iqaluit. Home to only 7,500 people, Iqaluit is the capital – and only city – of the province of Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost and most sparsely populated territory. The area has been used as an Inuit fishing hub for thousands of years. In Iqaluit, Pope Francis will meet at 4:45pm local time with students of the former residential schools of Canada.
Canada forced more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children to attend residential schools across the country between the late 1800s and 1990s. Thousands are believed to have died while attending the institutions, which were established and funded by the state but run by various religious denominations, most notably the Catholic Church.
Francis is to land back in Rome on 30 July. As Canada is the second-largest country in the world by area, the distances involved for the whirlwind visit are vast. The Pope is expected to take part in events for about an hour at a time, owing to the health problems he has experience lately.
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