Pope Francis left Rome this Sunday morning (24) for Canada for a five-day trip, during which he must renew his apologies to the indigenous peoples for the abuses committed by the Church. Visiting three regions of the country, the sovereign pontiff will take part, from Monday (25), in meetings with local representatives during which he is expected to discuss the role of the Church in the drama of Catholic boarding schools for indigenous students.

Suffering from pain in his right knee, the 85-year-old pope boarded a wheelchair and had to use a platform lift to board the plane. With more than 10 hours of flight, it is the Pope’s longest trip since 2019. Francis is accompanied by his head of diplomacy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The pontiff is expected to announce a reconciliation plan and the opening of church archives to understand how these boarding schools operate. A total of 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and forcibly sent to these boarding schools, where many were abused and around 5,000 died between the end of the 19th century and 1990.

The ancestral Amerindian populations represent 5% of the population of Canada and are identified in three groups: the Indians or First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit. A national commission of inquiry denounces a “cultural genocide”, after the discovery of more than 1,300 anonymous graves, in 2021. The fact shocked the country and several churches were burned down.

At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the “haunting discoveries” of the unnamed graves had forced Canadians “to reflect on the historical and frequent injustices faced by Indigenous peoples.” Trudeau urged everyone to participate in reconciliation and condemned the burning of churches across the country.

“Now, 38 years later, I understand the effects and the impact on my life. And even if the pope apologizes, it won’t change anything,” Jimmy Papatie, a survivor of one of these, told RFI. schools for students. “I believe your visit is a public relations exercise to calm public opinion in the country,” he added.

The more than 130 state-subsidized boarding schools were mainly run by the Catholic Church. In these places, far from their families, their language and their culture, many of these children have suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of principals and teachers.

The pontiff’s journey arouses great expectations among the indigenous populations. They expect Francis to renew the apology he made in April to the Vatican.

The Argentinian Jesuit will also be able to make symbolic gestures, such as taking back indigenous art objects stored in the Vatican for decades.

“This historic journey is an important part of the healing journey,” but “much remains to be done,” Six Nations Treaty Confederacy Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. said at a press conference Thursday ( 21).

“The events of the next week could open wounds to survivors,” warned Irvin Bull, Chief of the Louis Bull Cree Tribe.

After a day of rest, François is due to meet natives for the first time Monday morning in Maskwacis, about 100 kilometers south of Edmonton, where up to 15,000 people are expected. Alberta was the province with the largest number of Catholic boarding schools.

“I would like a lot of people to come” to “hear that it can’t be invented,” Charlotte Roan, 44, told AFP in Maskwacis.

Others look at the event with bitterness. “For me, it’s a little too late because a lot of people have suffered,” laments Linda McGilvery, 68, who spent eight years of her childhood in boarding school and now lives in Saint-Paul, 200 kilometers east. east of Edmonton. “I lost a lot of my culture, my ancestry, it’s a lot of years of loss,” laments this woman from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation who has no intention of seeing the pope.

On Monday afternoon, the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics will deliver a second address at First Peoples Sacred Heart Church in Edmonton. On Tuesday, the pope is due to celebrate mass at an Edmonton stadium before heading to Lac Sainte-Anne, site of an important annual pilgrimage.

Francis is to visit Quebec from July 27 to 29, before leaving for Iqaluit (Nunavut), a city in the Arctic archipelago in the far north of Canada.

In total, Francis will give four speeches and four homilies, all in Spanish. He is the second pope to visit Canada, after John Paul II, who visited the country three times: in 1984, 1987 and 2002.

44% of the Canadian population is Catholic, but the Church is currently in crisis, with a sharp decline in its practices in recent years.

In August of last year, the Government of Canada attempted to right past wrongs by compensating Indigenous victims of Catholic residential schools that operated in the country for a century. Authorities have provided around 220 million euros to help communities find unmarked graves of indigenous children who died in these areas and support survivors.

(With information from RFI and AFP)