Pope Francis will visit Canada from July 24 to 30, on a trip during which he will publicly apologize for decades of violence against indigenous populations in Catholic boarding schools.
(Read: The pope apologizes to Canadian indigenous people and announces a trip to the country)
Welcoming the invitation of the civil and ecclesial authorities as well as of the indigenous communities and peoples, the Holy Father Francis will make an apostolic trip to Canada from July 24 to 30 to visit the cities of Edmonton, Quebec and Iqaluit”announced this Friday the Vatican press office.
(He is interested in: The Pope sees a problem in the lack of children and asks to relaunch the birth rate)
“I ask God for forgiveness” and “I join my brother Canadian bishops in apologizing,” the 85-year-old pontiff declared in April during an audience at the Vatican before delegations from Canada’s Métis, Inuit and indigenous peoples.
Through the voices of the indigenous”I have received, with great sadness in my heart, the stories of suffering, deprivation, discriminatory treatment and various forms of abuse suffered by several of you, especially in boarding schools,” said the Argentine pontiff.
“I would like to be with you this year”, for the celebration of Santa Ana on July 26, he anticipated on that occasion. The discovery of hundreds of unmarked children’s graves in recent months has shaken Canada and many survivors are hoping for a forceful gesture from the pope.
Between the end of the 19th century and the 1980s, some 150,000 indigenous, mestizo and Inuit children were forcibly recruited into 139 boarding schools in Canadawhere they were separated from their families, their language and their culture.
Thousands died, mostly from malnutrition, disease or neglect, in what the Committee for Truth and Reconciliation called “cultural genocide” in 2015. Others were physically or sexually abused.
More than 1,300 anonymous children’s graves have been found on the sites of former boarding schools in the past year and searches continue across the country.
Pope’s efforts
Despite his health conditions due to severe knee pain that has prevented him from walking on several occasions and forced him to postpone his visit to Lebanon, scheduled for June according to local authorities, Francis officially confirmed the trip to Canada.
The pontiff will visit Edmonton, capital of the Canadian province of Alberta., second city in Canada with the highest number of aboriginal people living in urban centers. The Vatican said he will also visit Iqaluit, in the far north of the country, not far from the Arctic Ocean, which has the largest number of Inuit in Canada.
Francis was personally invited by the Inuit delegates to visit their region during his meetings with them in March and April at the Vatican.
The pope’s program also includes the largely Francophone Quebec City, where the Catholic Church has historically held a prominent place and was a key authority until the early 1960s.
The Argentine pontiff also has an international trip scheduled in July to visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan.
It is a delicate trip, to countries that have been involved in bloody civil wars that have caused numerous victims and displaced people and that constitutes a challenge for the organizers both for safety and health.
AFP
More world news
– Is a Russian invasion of Finland likely due to NATO membership?
– Why does the fall of bitcoin have El Salvador in an economic crisis?
– ‘It does not seem that there is a genuine desire for justice in the Maduro government’
#Pope #Francis #travel #Canada #July #meet #natives