Pope Francis is expected to visit Canada this summer, next July. He should visit the cities of Quebec, Edmonton and Iqaluit during a visit of about four days.
Posted at 12:59 p.m.
This was revealed Friday morning by the English-language network CBC, citing anonymous sources involved in the planning of this trip, which is eagerly awaited by several indigenous communities.
In early April, Pope Francis spoke about the trip when apologizing to Indigenous Canadians gathered at the Vatican. Some had regretted that he limited himself to “asking God’s forgiveness” for “the deplorable conduct of members of the Catholic Church”, but the indigenous leaders were mostly satisfied with the apology.
“I felt indignation in him,” said Mandy Gull-Masty, Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec, in particular, in a press conference call from the city of Rome, Italy. “His most important statement to me was to denounce efforts to instill a sense of inferiority in my people and to steal their culture. “In his message, he touched everywhere, not only members of the Catholic Church, but also colonialism,” replied the chief of Waswanipi. For me, everyone played a role, not just the Church, not just him,” she added.
But throughout this week, Indigenous delegates had said they would prefer the pope to apologize on his trip to Canada. However, it was not known until now when this journey would take place exactly, the Vatican having leaked very few details.
great expectations
In short, the Aboriginal people especially expect from this trip that the pope apologizes for the role played by the Church in the Canadian residential school system.
150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly placed in 139 residential schools across Canada, where they were cut off from their family, language and culture. In 2015, a national commission of inquiry called this system “cultural genocide”.
According to CBC, the pope’s trip would be financed in particular by the Canadian Catholic Church, with a possible participation of the federal government. Vatican teams are said to have already carried out preparatory missions in Quebec, Edmonton and Iqaluit, to prepare for the trip, which will involve several security and logistical issues.
If the whole thing materializes, it will only be the fourth time that a pope has set foot on Canadian soil. In the past, Pope John Paul II visited Canada three times. The first time, in September 1984, he celebrated a mass in Jarry Park, in which many people took part.
With Mathieu Perrault, The Press