Pope Francis has landed in Canada, beginning a fraught visit to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses by missionaries at residential schools.
“Right now, many of our people are skeptical and they are hurt,” said Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations. Yet he expressed hope that with the papal apology, “We could begin our journey of healing .. and change the way things have been for our people for many, many years."
Francis’ week-long trip — which will take him to Edmonton; Quebec City and finally Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the far north — follows meetings he held in the spring at the Vatican with delegations from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit. Those meetings culminated with a for the “deplorable” abuses committed by some Catholic missionaries in residential schools.
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 had called for a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil, but it was only after of around 200 children at the former Kamloops residential school in British Columbia that the Vatican mobilized to comply with the request. , the Rev. Joannes Rivoire, who ministered to Inuit communities until he left in the 1990s and returned to France. Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him in 1998 on accusations of several counts of sexual abuse, but it has never been served.
Asked about the request, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said last week that he had no information on the case.
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