Francis, who will be the first pope in nearly 20 years to visit Canada, said on Sunday he was making a"pilgrimage of penance" to help heal the wrongs done to indigenous people by Roman Catholic priests and nuns who ran abusive residential schools linked to deaths of thousands of children.
Francis, 85, is personally popular in Canada, particularly among Catholics, who represent 32% of the population, according to the last census. Tickets for his free events were snapped up within minutes and Indigenous groups said they have been overwhelmed with queries from residential school survivors interested in attending.
During his July 24-30 trip, Francis will first visit Edmonton and Maskwacis in the western province of Alberta, then Lac Ste. Anne in Quebec before ending in Iqaluit, in Canada’s Nunavut territory. He is scheduled to deliver nine homilies and addresses and say two masses.
Some indigenous leaders also want the Catholic Church to renounce a 15th-century colonial doctrine that justified dispossessing indigenous people, issued as papal bulls or edicts.
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