reconciliation

The pope met with government, civic and Indigenous leaders at the fortress, the official residence of the governor general of Canada.

Pope Francis delivered his apology on the treaty land of the Ermineskin and Samson Cree Nations, the Louis Bull Tribe and the Montana First Nation, as part of his “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada.

While presented as missionary work, the operation of residential schools by Catholics in Canada was actually an attempt to impose European culture on Canada’s Indigenous people, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis himself described the trip as a “penitential pilgrimage” to express, in person and on Canadian soil, his “indignation, sorrow and shame for all that these people suffered.”

Pope Francis said the church’s involvement in the schools was the reason why he met in late March and early April at the Vatican with “representatives of Indigenous peoples, to whom I expressed my sorrow and solidarity for the harm they have suffered.”

Pope Francis called on authorities in Sri Lanka to listen to the cries of their people and renewed his calls for peace in Ukraine which have continued to fend off attacks from Russia.

Pope Francis was to have been in Kinshasa, Congo, that day, but was forced to postpone the trip because of problems with his knee.

Recalling the words of the late Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, the pope said that as “sister churches, brother peoples,” Orthodox Christians and Catholics must unite in answering the call to help those suffering in war.