pope visit to canada

Sunday, July 24, 2022

11:20 am (mdt), arrival of pope francis in canada.

Edmonton International Airport, Alberta

Monday, July 25, 2022

10:00 am (mdt), meeting with indigenous peoples, first nations, métis and inuit.

Former Ermineskin Residential School, Maskwacis, Alberta

4:45 PM (MDT)

Meeting with indigenous peoples and members of the parish community of sacred heart.

Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples, Edmonton, Alberta

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

9:15 am (mdt), holy mass at commonwealth stadium.

Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Alberta

5:00 PM (MDT)

Pilgrimage to the site of lac ste. anne and liturgy of the word.

Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Alberta / Quebec

9:00 AM (MDT)

Departure of pope francis from edmonton to quebec city, 3:05 pm (edt), arrival of pope francis in quebec city.

Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport, Quebec City, Quebec

3:40 PM (EDT) – one hour delay expected

*visit with state officials and public address.

Citadelle de Québec / Plains of Abraham, Quebec *Event held on the Plains of Abraham

Thursday, July 28, 2022

10:00 am (edt), *holy mass at the national shrine of ste. anne de beaupré.

National Shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec *Broadcast event on the Plains of Abraham

5:15 PM (EDT)

Vespers with bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians and pastoral workers.

Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec, Quebec City, Quebec

Friday, July 29, 2022

Quebec / Nunavut

9:00 AM (EDT)

Private meeting with the members of the society of jesus.

Archbishop’s Residence, Quebec City, Quebec

10:45 AM (EDT)

Meeting with a delegation of indigenous peoples from eastern canada.

Archbishop’s Residence, Quebec City, Quebec

12:45 PM (EDT)

Departure of pope francis from quebec city, 3:50 pm (edt), arrival of pope francis to iqaluit.

Iqaluit International Airport, Iqaluit, Nunavut

4:15 PM (EDT)

Private meeting with former residential school students.

Iqaluit, Nunavut

5:00 PM (EDT)

Public event in iqaluit hosted by inuit, 6:15 pm (edt), farewell ceremony / departure of pope francis from canada.

Iqaluit International Airport

The Papal Visit to Canada secretariat has been created by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the national assembly of the Bishops of Canada. It was founded in 1943 and officially recognized by the Holy See in 1948. The Papal Visit team is working closely with numerous partners including the Vatican, Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers and survivors of residential schools along with government officials at the federal, provincial and municipal levels as we prepare for this historic visit.

Archival Footage

Papal visit keepsakes.

Papal Visit in Canada c/o Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops 2500 Don Reid Drive, Ottawa (ON) K1H 2J2 Canada

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS to CANADA

24 - 30 JULY 2022

• Missal for the Apostolic Journey
• Photo Gallery    

Sunday, 24 July 2022

ROME - EDMONTON 

Monday, 25 July 2022

EDMONTON - MASKWACIS – EDMONTON  

Tuesday, 26 July 2022

EDMONTON - LAC STE. ANNE – EDMONTON 

Wednesday, 27 July 2022

EDMONTON – QUÉBEC 

Thursday, 28 July 2022

QUÉBEC 

Friday , 29 July 2022

QUÉBEC - IQALUIT – ROME 

Saturday, 30 July 2022

Bulletin of the Holy See Press Office , 23 June 2022

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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Pope Francis’ Canada visit: Read live updates here

By CNA Staff , Katie Yoder

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2022 / 07:45 am

Pope Francis is visiting Canada in what he has called a “penitential pilgrimage” from July 24 to July 29.

Read the latest updates about his trip below.

July 30, 5:53 a.m.: Full text: Pope Francis’ in-flight press conference from Canada

Pope Francis returned to Rome on Saturday after a week-long trip to Canada. During his trip, the pope visited Edmonton, Québec, and Iqaluit on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” to apologize to the country’s indigenous communities.

Please read here for CNA’s full transcript of Pope Francis’ press conference on the flight from Iqaluit, Canada, to Italy.

July 30, 5:09 a.m.: Pope Francis: Canada's residential schools system was 'cultural genocide'

Speaking to journalists on the papal plane on July 30, the pope explained that he had not used the term “genocide” during his public apologies for past abuses perpetrated by Catholics in the system because it had not come to mind.

You can read more here .

July 29, 9:17 p.m.

📹HIGHLIGHTS | Pope Francis finished his trip to Canada by visiting Iqaluit, at the edge of the Arctic, where no plant grows taller than 8 inches. As a final wrap-up to his pilgrimage, he met with young people and elders. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/2hQP8h7Vmm — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 30, 2022

July 29, 7:55 p.m.: Choose light over darkness, Pope Francis tells young people in Iqaluit

Pope Francis on Friday encouraged indigenous young people and elders in Iqaluit in northern Canada not to be disheartened but to seek out what is good.

“You will come to realize that Jesus, from the cross, never points his finger at you; he embraces you and encourages you, because he believes in you even at those times when you stop believing in yourself. So never lose hope, fight, give it your all, and you will not be sorry.”

July 29, 6:40 p.m.: Pope Francis gifts his ‘dearest friend’ to Canada

As Pope Francis concludes his visit to Canada, he is leaving behind his “dearest friend”: St. Joseph.

Before traveling to Iqaluit on Friday, the 85-year-old pontiff gifted a statue of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus to the archbishop’s residence in Québec City, according to the Holy See Press Office. He presented an identical statue of Jesus’ foster father to St. Joseph Seminary, which hosted him at the start of his trip in Edmonton, Alberta.

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“I am leaving you my dearest friend,” he told the institute, Vatican News shared.

July 29, 5:00 p.m.

Pope Francis meets with youth and elders before attending a farewell ceremony in Iqaluit, the capital and only city of Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost and most sparsely populated territory. Catholics can watch live below.

July 29, 1:22 p.m.: Pope Francis praises Canada’s indigenous people as he departs Québec

In a brief address Friday to delegates representing nine indigenous nations of Canada, Pope Francis said he is returning home “greatly enriched” after his weeklong “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, during which he publicly apologized several times for past abuses perpetrated by Catholics against the nation’s indigenous.

(Story continues below)

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“​​I have come as a brother, to discover firsthand the good and bad fruit borne by members of the local Catholic family in the course of the years. I have come in a spirit of penance, to express my heartfelt pain at the wrong inflicted on you by not a few Catholics who supported oppressive and unjust policies in your regard,” the 85-year-old pope said, addressing the group gathered at the archbishop’s residence in Québec City.

July 29, 1:00 p.m.

While in the air, Pope Francis remembers Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Tekakwitha, also known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” became the first Native American saint in 2012. She was raised in New York, by her uncle, a Mohawk chief, after her parents died from a smallpox epidemic. After encountering Jesuit priests in her village, she converted to Catholicism at 19. Her relatives and the village attempted to punish her for her beliefs. She later ran away to Montreal, Canada, where she could practice her faith and live out her life as a consecrated virgin.

My thoughts and prayers in these days have focused often on Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. We venerate her for her devotion to prayer and work, and her ability to endure many trials patiently and meekly. #IndigenousPeoples — Pope Francis (@Pontifex) July 29, 2022

July 29, 11:47 a.m.

The papal flight prepares to depart Québec for Iqaluit. You can read more about Iqaluit and why Pope Francis is traveling there here .

July 29, 10:30 a.m.

Pope Francis meets with a delegation of indigenous peoples in Québec. Catholics can watch him speak live below.

July 29, 9:45 a.m.

Pope Francis attended a closed-door meeting with Jesuits in Québec this morning.

July 29, 7:19 a.m.

Today marks the last day of Pope Francis' visit to Canada. He will be meeting with members of the Society of Jesus and a delegation of indigenous peoples in Québec. From there, he will fly to Iqaluit, where he will meet with students of former residential schools, young people and elders, and attend a farewell ceremony.

You can read more about Iqaluit and why Pope Francis is traveling there here .

Pope Francis’ Events Schedule for #29July2022 #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogheter @papal_visit pic.twitter.com/MeHHwbIK2D — Holy See Press Office (@HolySeePress) July 29, 2022

July 28, 8:54 p.m.

📹VIDEO | Pope Francis was greeted by cheers during his visit to Quebec. He was also able to get out of his vehicle by his own means before using his wheelchair. Let's keep praying for his health and the fruits of his trip. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/DPRaAjx4Jf — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 29, 2022

July 28, 6:23 p.m. : Pope Francis: Complaining that the world is evil is ‘not Christian’

Speaking Thursday to a group of priests, bishops, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians, and pastoral workers at the Cathedral Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec, Pope Francis urged those present to model Christian joy and fraternity to those to whom they minister. 

“Christian joy is about the experience of a peace that remains in our hearts, even when we are pelted by trials and afflictions, for then we know that we are not alone, but accompanied by a God who is not indifferent to our lot. When seas are rough: The storm is always on the surface but the depths remain calm and peaceful. That is also true of Christian joy: It is a free gift, the certainty of knowing that we are loved, sustained and embraced by Christ in every situation in life,” the pope said in his homily as part of a Vespers service at the cathedral. 

July 28, 5:50 p.m. : Pope Francis’ Canada trip: What is Iqaluit and why is he going there?

Pope Francis is set to fly to Iqaluit, Canada, on Friday, July 29. The city marks the last stop of the 85-year-old pontiff’s “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada before he heads back to Rome.

At the final stop of his trip to Canada, the pontiff will meet with Inuit residential school survivors and will visit Nakasuk Elementary School.

Here is what to know about Iqaluit, its lone Catholic parish, and the significance of the pope’s visit.

July 28, 5:34 p.m.: Pope Francis: Jesus comes to us when we are at our lowest

At a July 28 Mass in the historic Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Québec, Pope Francis preached on the hope and redemption that Christ offers in the face of shame, and how God seeks to draw near to us in moments of failure.

“On the path of life and faith, as we seek to achieve the dreams, plans, hopes and expectations deep in our hearts, we also come up against our own frailties and weaknesses; we experience setbacks and disappointments, and often we can remain imprisoned by a paralyzing sense of failure. Yet the Gospel tells us that at those very moments we are not alone, for the Lord comes to meet us and stands at our side,” the pope said, preaching in his native Spanish.

📹 HIGHLIGHTS | Pope Francis presided over the Holy Mass at the National Shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupre in Quebec. St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, was proclaimed patroness of Québec in 1876. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/hnd1UrgcDv — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 28, 2022

July 28, 5:20 p.m.

Pope Francis delivers a homily during evening prayer from the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Québec, Canada. Catholics can watch live below.

July 28, 5:00 p.m.

Catholics can watch evening prayer with Pope Francis from the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Québec, Canada, live below.

Pope Francis will pray Vespers with bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians, and pastoral workers at the cathedral.

July 28, 3:00 p.m.

Whenever our failures lead to an encounter with the Lord, life and hope are reborn and we are able to be reconciled: with ourselves, with our brothers and sisters, and with God. #ApostolicJourney #Canada — Pope Francis (@Pontifex) July 28, 2022

July 28, 12:50 p.m.

Following Mass at the National Shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré in Québec, Pope Francis met with the guests of the Fraternité Saint Alphonse welcome and spirituality center.

He was welcomed in the center's garden by permanent guests and by those who habitually frequent the center — in total, about 50 people including the elderly, people suffering from various addictions, and HIV/AIDS patients. The director in charge, Father André Morency, was also present. The pope greeted them, listened to their stories, and collected their prayers.

Before leaving, he gifted them with an icon of the "Most Holy Lady of Jerusalem."

Pope Francis shared a special moment with a guest of the Fraternité St Alphonse reception and spirituality center in Quebec. There are about 50 people at the center. Among them are the elderly and people suffering from addictions. #PopeInCanada #walkingtogether 📷 Vatican Media pic.twitter.com/kW0mcTrSsl — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) July 28, 2022

July 28, 12:02 p.m.

This morning Pope Francis presided over Mass at the Sanctuary of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec. #PopeInCanada #WalkingTogether 📷 Vatican Media pic.twitter.com/sVwHiq52dn — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) July 28, 2022

July 28, 9:30 a.m.

Catholics can watch Holy Mass in Québec with Pope Francis from the National Shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré, the oldest pilgrimage site in North America, live below. The shrine houses three relics of St. Anne.

Local authorities estimate that 2,000 people are at the shrine today.

July 28, 9:25 a.m.

Pope Francis is arriving at St. Anne de Beaupré in Québec to celebrate Mass. Originally built in the 17th century to welcome a miraculous statue of the saint, it marks the most ancient shrine in North America. According to tradition, one of the first builders of the church suffered from a severe scoliosis and was healed. St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus Christ, was proclaimed patroness of Québec in 1876. Pope Francis has centered much of his trip on this saint.

July 28, 6:52 a.m.: A look beyond the headlines: Pope Francis encounters Catholic life and history on his journey to Canada

The images of Pope Francis receiving a feathered headdress by indigenous Canadians, the many moving moments and significant gestures on this papal trip have made headlines around the world. This “penitential pilgrimage”, dedicated to a real path of reconciliation with the Native American populations, is also an Apostolic journey to a country with a rich and varied Catholic history.

July 27, 7:00 p.m.: Pope Francis expresses ‘deep shame’ in Canada, warns of new ‘cancel culture’

Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for the harm done to indigenous Canadians by Catholics in a Wednesday address before top government officials and representatives of the indigenous peoples in Canada.

“I express my deep shame and sorrow, and, together with the bishops of this country, I renew my request for forgiveness for the wrong done by so many Christians to the indigenous peoples,” the 85-year-old pontiff said, citing the Catholic Church’s role in running many of the country’s government-sponsored residential schools for indigenous children.

July 27, 6:28 p.m.: Did Pope Francis meet Justin Trudeau before? Here’s what you need to know as the two meet today

Pope Francis met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this afternoon, July 27, in Quebec City, as part of his weeklong “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada.

In their 36-minute 2017 meeting, which the Vatican described as “cordial,” the pope gave Trudeau a medallion symbolizing forgiveness, joy, and mutual acceptance. The medallion also references Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

July 27, 6:00 p.m.

Pope Francis signed the book of honor at the Citadelle de Québec. He wrote: “As a pilgrim in Canada, a land that stretches from sea to sea, I pray to God that this great country will always be an example in building a future that preserves and values its roots, particularly its indigenous peoples, and in being a welcoming home for all.”

📹HIGHLIGHTS | Pope Francis arrived in Quebec. He met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Governor General of Canada, representatives of indigenous peoples, members of the Diplomatic Corps, and civil authorities. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/S0ToRrW9vV — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 28, 2022

July 27, 4:55 p.m.

Pope Francis arrives in Québec and is welcomed by top government officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's governor general, Mary Simon.

Pope Francis arrived in Québec and was welcomed by top government officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's governor general, Mary Simon. #PopeInCanada #WalkingTogether 📷 @andygag / pool VAMP pic.twitter.com/VY08DDgJ8m — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) July 27, 2022

July 27, 4:30 p.m.

Catholics can watch Pope Francis’ meeting with Canadian civil and religious authorities, members of the diplomatic corps, and representatives of the indigenous peoples in Québec live below.

July 27, 1:00 p.m.: Pope Francis in Canada: How Ukrainian migrants and indigenous peoples can learn from each other

During his “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, Pope Francis visited Sacred Heart Church, Edmonton's first parish dedicated to pastoral care for people from the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities. Just one block away from this parish is the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral of St. Josaphat, home to a Ukrainilarge Ukrainian community that began to emigrate to Western Canada 130 years ago.

The history of indigenous peoples in Canada speaks to the plight of Ukrainian immigrants. The situation faced by indigenous peoples bears many similarities to what is now being experienced in Ukraine with Russian aggression, explained Bishop David Motiuk, bishop of the Eparchy of Edmonton.

July 27, 12:00 p.m.

Pope Francis will be in Québec today. Canada's governor general, Mary Simon, will welcome him as the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, Canada's head of state. The pontiff will also meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, civil authorities, representatives of indigenous peoples, and members of the diplomatic corps.

Pope Francis’ Events Schedule for #27July2022 #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogheter @papal_visit pic.twitter.com/nRb9Vdg7Ip — Holy See Press Office (@HolySeePress) July 27, 2022

July 27, 10:10 a.m.

This map illustrates Pope Francis’ flight path for his Canada trip.

July 26, 8:45 p.m.: Pope Francis blesses the water, pilgrims at Lac Ste. Anne in Canada

Pope Francis concluded his second full day in Canada with a visit to Lac Ste. Anne, the site of one of Canada’s most famous Catholic pilgrimages and a place of spiritual significance for the nation’s indigenous people. The pope celebrated a Liturgy of the Word at the Shrine of Ste. Anne, with a crowd of mostly indigenous people in attendance, estimated at around 10,000.

The large, shallow, and muddy lake — about an hour’s drive from Edmonton — has been revered as a place of spiritual significance, and of healing, for centuries.

📹 HIGHLIGHTS | Pope Francis visited Lac Ste. Anne, the site of an annual pilgrimage that welcomes tens of thousands of Indigenous participants from throughout Canada and the United States each year. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/o1PTQDmr8v — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 27, 2022

July 26, 7:00 p.m.

Pope Francis visits Lac Ste. Anne, a famous Catholic pilgrimage site in Canada that holds spiritual significance for the nation’s indigenous people. 

The pope blessed a bowl of the lake’s water, which was brought up to a small wooden structure, shaped like a teepee, overlooking the lake. He made the Sign of the Cross towards the four cardinal points, according to indigenous custom. The pope prayed by the water's edge in his wheelchair before sprinkling the crowds with the blessed water. 

You can watch his visit to Lac Ste. Anne here.

July 26, 4:24 p.m.: Pope Francis preaches on sharing faith with love before 50,000 at largest stadium in Canada

Preaching at a Mass celebrated in Canada’s largest stadium, Pope Francis reflected on the elderly, who he said should be honored, and who serve as an example to the Church on how to pass on faith in a loving way.

“In addition to being children of a history that needs to be preserved, we are authors of a history yet to be written,” the Holy Father said.   “The grandparents who went before, the elderly who had dreams and hopes for us, and made great sacrifices for us, ask us an essential question: what kind of a society do you want to build?”

📹 HIGHLIGHTS | On the feast of Jesus' grandparents, St. Anne and St. Joachim, Pope Francis celebrated an open-air Mass at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. An estimated 50,000 people attended. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/N2zQAvAxge — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 26, 2022

July 26, 3:00 p.m.

Pope Francis asks for the intercession of St. Joachim and St. Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for a “better future.” July 26 marks their feast day.

May Saints #JoachimAndAnn help us honour our #GrandparentsAndElders , to treasure their presence in order to create a better future, a future in which the story of violence and marginalization suffered by our #Indigenous brothers and sisters is never repeated. — Pope Francis (@Pontifex) July 26, 2022

July 26, 12:45 p.m.

According to local authorities, an estimated 50,000 people are attending the Mass celebrated by Pope Francis from the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta.

July 26, 11:30 a.m.

Catholics can watch Pope Francis’ Mass from the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, below.

July 25, 8:48 p.m.: No remains unearthed yet from Canada’s residential school grave sites

On May 27, 2021, the news broke that unmarked graves containing the remains of indigenous children had been discovered on the grounds of a former residential school in British Columbia. 

The Kamloops Indian residential school, which operated from the late 19th century to the late 1970s, was among Canada’s government-sponsored schools run by the Catholic Church to forcibly assimilate indigenous children.

More than a year later, no bodies have been discovered at the Kamloops site. It is not clear whether the graves said to have been discovered there actually exist. 

July 25, 7:42 p.m.: Pope Francis: Christ offers example of reconciliation through suffering

Speaking to a group of Catholics at Sacred Heart parish in Edmonton July 25, Pope Francis reiterated his “shame” and sorrow at the hurt caused by Catholics during the era of Canada’s residential school system, and praised the parish community as “a house for all, open and  inclusive, just as the Church should be.”

You can read more here . 

📹HIGHLIGHTS | Pope Francis met with parish members of the Community of the Sacred Heart in Edmonton. This Catholic church has bounced back from two major fires in its history, in 1966 and 2020. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/rcbIbPOSe1 — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 26, 2022

July 25, 6:30 p.m.

Catholics can watch Pope Francis' meeting with members of the Sacred Heart parish community in below. The church is the only designated indigenous church in Canada.

July 25, 2:17 p.m.: Pope Francis apologizes for harm done to indigenous Canadians at residential schools

In a speech in rural Canada before a crowd of indigenous Canadian people, Pope Francis publicly apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in running much of Canada’s government-sponsored residential school system. 

During more than a century of operation, the system worked to stamp out aspects of native culture, language, and religious practice. 

“I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry,” Pope Francis said.

You can read more here . You can also watch his speech below during his meeting with indigenous Canadians in Maskwacis, Alberta.

📹 HIGHLIGHTS | Pope Francis met with Metis, Inuit, and First Nations people in Maskwacis, Alberta. He apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in running much of Canada’s government-sponsored residential school system. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/zPHmSaajIB — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 25, 2022

July 25, 1:11 p.m.

Pope Francis started his Monday events in Canada by visiting the cemetery and chapel of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Maskwacis, Alberta, where he spent a moment of silent prayer. #WalkingTogether #PopeInCanada 📷 Vatican Media pic.twitter.com/gAndrjEZwl — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) July 25, 2022

July 24, 12:58 p.m.

Pope Francis arrives in Canada at Edmonton International Airport and attends a welcoming ceremony.

📹VIDEO | Pope Francis arrived in Canada. He did not use the plane stairs, and a car took him to the official welcome ceremony at Edmonton airport. He used a wheelchair to greet Canadian authorities and indigenous leaders. #PopeinCanada #WalkingTogether pic.twitter.com/rdKlJeDhaL — EWTN News (@EWTNews) July 24, 2022

July 24, 9:33 a.m.: Pope Francis begins “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada During his six-day trip, the pope is expected to meet with and apologize to indigenous Canadians for abuses committed at Church-run residential schools in the 20th century. The pope’s itinerary includes stops in Edmonton, Quebec City, and Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. He returns to Rome on Saturday, July 30.

Pope Francis boarded the papal plane that will take him to Canada on his 37th apostolic journey. He has called this trip a 'penitential pilgrimage.' 📷 @dibanezgut / @EWTNVatican pic.twitter.com/WL39c9FvPs — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) July 24, 2022

July 23, 8:00 a.m. : Pope Francis' visit to Canada: A CNA explainer

Pope Francis is set to arrive in Canada on July 24, arriving back in Rome on July 30. During his trip, he’s expected to meet with and apologize to indigenous Canadians for abuses committed at Church-run residential schools in the 20th century. Why this trip, and why now? Read about it here .

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Pope Francis: Christ offers example of reconciliation through suffering

No remains unearthed yet from Canada’s residential school grave sites

No excavation has been done at suspected grave sites at residential schools in Canada. Yet media outlets continue to report incorrectly that the “remains” of hundreds of children have been discovered.

Pope Francis to visit Canada in July

By Vatican News staff writer

The Holy See Press Office on Friday announced that Pope Francis will be travelling to Canada from 24 – 30 July, having accepted invitations from civil and ecclesiastical authorities, as well as the indigenous communities.

The upcoming July visit of the Holy Father will see him visit the cities of Edmonton, Québec and Iqaluit.

Further details about the Pope’s journey to Canada will be made available in coming weeks, the Press Office statement said.

Meetings with delegations of Canadian indigenous peoples

Ahead of this latest announcement, Pope Francis, in recent weeks, has had a series of meetings with several delegations of Canadian indigenous peoples in the Vatican.

The Pope met with the delegations of Métis and Inuit on 28 March and with the First Nations delegation on 31 March. He then received all three delegations together, along with representatives of the Canadian Bishops’ Conference (CCCB) on 1 April.

The meetings provided the Pope the opportunity to “listen and to offer space for the painful stories shared by the survivors,” and to address the ongoing trauma and suffering faced by Indigenous Peoples to this day, especially after news broke last year of the discovery of mass graves in the Kamloops Indian Residential School, with the bodies of hundreds of indigenous people.

The discovery marked the symbol of a cruel past, which from 1880 to the final decades of the 20 th Century, saw government-funded institutions run by Catholic organizations try to educate and convert indigenous youth.

Pope Francis expressed his indignation and shame “for the role that a number of Catholics, particularly those with educational responsibilities, have had in all these things that wounded you [the Indigenous Peoples], in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values.”

On that occasion, the Pope also said that he had been enriched by their words and testimonies and would be happy to benefit again from meeting them when he visits their native lands, where your [their] families live.

Canadian Bishops welcome Pope’s visit

In a separate statement, Bishops Raymond Poisson, the President of the Canadian Bishops’ Conference welcomed the formal confirmation of the Pope’s visit on behalf of the country’s bishops.

“We are immensely grateful that the Holy Father has accepted our invitation to continue the journey of healing and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples of this land,” Bishop Poisson said. “We pray for the health of the Holy Father as we undertake the intensive planning for this historic visit.”

Edmonton, Iqaluit and Quebec

Concerning the three cities to be visited by the Pope, the statement notes that Edmonton is home to the second-largest number of Indigenous Peoples living in urban Canadian cities and about 25 residential schools were located in Alberta – the most of any province in Canada.

Iqaluit, for its part, is home to close to 8,000 people and has the highest population of Inuit (3,900) of all Canadian cities.

Quebec City is home to Ste. Anne-de-Beaupré, one of the oldest and most popular pilgrimage sites in North America which draws Indigenous Peoples and others from throughout Canada and from around the world annually.

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Papal visit to Canada Francis Begs Forgiveness for ‘Evil’ Christians Inflicted on Indigenous People

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‘I humbly beg forgiveness,’ Francis tells Canada’s Indigenous people.

MASKWACIS, Alberta — Pope Francis offered a sweeping apology to Indigenous people on their native land in Canada on Monday, fulfilling a critical demand of many of the survivors of church-run residential schools that became gruesome centers of abuse, forced assimilation, cultural devastation and death for over a century.

“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said to a large crowd of Indigenous people, some wearing traditional clothing and headdresses, in Maskwacis, Alberta, the site of a former residential school.

The pope made his apology in a pow wow circle, a covered ring surrounding an open space used for traditional dancing and drumming circles. Around it were teepees, campfires, and booths labeled “Mental Health and Cultural Support.”

Francis, who arrived at the event being pushed in a wheelchair, added that his remarks were intended for “every Native community and person” and said that a feeling of “shame” had lingered since he apologized to representatives of Indigenous people in April at the Vatican.

He said he was “deeply sorry” — a remark that triggered applause and approving shouts — for the ways in which “many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples.”

“I am sorry,” he continued. “I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.”

Those schools separated children from parents; inflicted physical, sexual and mental abuse; erased languages; and used Christianity as a weapon to break the cultures, and communities, of Indigenous people. Christian churches operated most of the schools for the government with Catholic orders responsible for running 60 to 70 percent of the roughly 130 schools, where thousands of children died.

Francis said it was “right to remember” on the site of such traumas, even at the risk of opening old wounds.

“It is necessary to remember how the policies of assimilation and enfranchisement, which also included the residential school system, were devastating for the people of these lands,” he said, adding, “I thank you for making me appreciate this.”

He called the abuses often carried out with missionary zeal, a “disastrous error” that eroded the people, their culture and values.

Francis also said that “begging pardon is not the end of the matter,” adding that he “fully” agreed with skeptics who wanted actions. And he said that he hoped for further investigations and that “concrete ways” could be found to help survivors begin a path toward healing and reconciliation.

After delivering his speech, which he offered in Spanish and which was translated into English, Chief Wilton Littlechild of the Ermineskin Cree Nation, who had introduced the pope, fitted him with a headdress, its white feathers standing over his white robes. The crowd erupted in applause.

When Francis had finished his remarks, many who had listened said they were satisfied with his apology.

“It was genuine and it was good,” said Cam Bird, 42, a residential school survivor from Little Red River reserve in Saskatchewan. “He believes us.”

But others were still taking stock of what had just happened after so many generations of devastation and trauma.

“I haven’t really digested it yet,” said Barb Morin, 64, from Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan, whose parents suffered in residential schools and who wore a shirt reading “Residential School Survivors Never Forgotten.” “I’m having a really hard time internalizing this right now.”

— Jason Horowitz

After delivering an apology to Indigenous people, Francis pursues reconciliation.

EDMONTON, Alberta — Hours after delivering a sweeping apology on the land of Indigenous people for his church’s role in causing generations of abuse and trauma at church-run residential schools, Pope Francis met with more survivors on church grounds.

Calling himself “a friend and pilgrim in your land,” Francis laid out his vision at the Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples in Edmonton, Alberta for how an open and tolerant church could spiritually, and practically, achieve reconciliation with representatives of the First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit.

“That is what the church is, and should always be — the place where reality is always superior to ideas,’’ the pontiff said. “Not a set of ideas and precepts to drill into people, but a welcoming home for everyone.”

Francis expanded on his appeal for forgiveness that he had made earlier in the day.

“It pains me to think that Catholics contributed to policies of assimilation and enfranchisement that inculcated a sense of inferiority,” Francis said, “robbing communities and individuals of their cultural and spiritual identity, severing their roots and fostering prejudicial and discriminatory attitudes.’’

He noted that “this was also done in the name of an educational system that was supposedly Christian.”

Francis then tried to meld the theology of the church with the spirituality of Indigenous people, but noted, “I can only imagine the effort it must take, for those who have suffered so greatly because of men and women who should have set an example of Christian living, even to think about reconciliation.”

He said it was all the worse because so many priests and nuns contributed to “lasting pain.”

Francis, a critic of proselytizing and colonialism, said it happened “because believers became worldly, and rather than fostering reconciliation, they imposed their own cultural models. This attitude dies hard, also from the religious standpoint.”

He talked about the “shame, as believers” for what had transpired, and used Indigenous symbols, including the tepee, to draw more connections with the Catholic faith. He argued that the example of Christ on the cross, “crucified in the many students of the residential schools,” was the transformative power that would turn sorrow into love and result into true reconciliation.

“In the name of Jesus,” he said, “may this never happen again in the Church.”

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An Indigenous community prepares for pilgrims flocking to see the pope.

ALEXIS NAKOTA SIOUX NATION, Alberta — Since 1887, Catholics, most of them Indigenous, have made an annual pilgrimage to the reed-lined shore of Lac Ste. Anne. And for much of that period, the closest Indigenous community to the site, what is today known as the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, has been hosting pilgrims.

With Pope Francis planning to attend on Tuesday, the people of Alexis have expanded their usual welcome. At the grounds running down to the lake shore, space has been cleared for upward of 3,000 campers, and adjacent fields nearby have been cleared for more for if that proves insufficient. Portable toilets dot the community, which is about three miles from the shrine, and a long row of portable buildings has been fitted with showers.

On Sunday afternoon, a steady stream of campers were arriving, some hauling large trailers, others bringing one-person tents or making shelters from logs and tarps.

“There are a lot of feelings about Pope Francis coming here,” said Chief Tony Alexis. “There’s the people who are very happy and celebrating that Pope Francis is here because they’ve always been faithful to the church. And there’s the ones who have been struggling with the pain that has been caused because of residential schools. So they’re a little bit apprehensive.”

Thousands of Indigenous children died and countless others were sexually and physically abused at the schools.

Not everyone arrived in a car or a pickup. Adam McDonald had walked from Fort McMurray, Alberta, a distance he measured precisely at 477.5 kilometers (296.7 miles). He pulled a wagon, which, he said, weighed up to 300 pounds when fully loaded during the two-and-a-half-week walk. Fastened at front end was a flag commemorating missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, while a commemorative flag for children who had died at residential schools was unfurled at the back.

“After the pope blesses the water, I’m going to release a lot of weight,” he said on Sunday. “All of that weight that I’ve been carrying for a number of years, I will let it go.”

Nearby, outside a large trailer, Marie Trottier was selling traditional beaded crucifixes hanging on deerskin necklaces. For more than two decades, Ms. Trottier, who is Métis and lives in the northern Saskatchewan community of Buffalo Narrows, has assisted priests in conducting the Dene language service at the Mass.

Ms. Trottier said she had cried when she watched video of the pope land on Sunday in Edmonton, Alberta. She said that the abuse at residential schools had never shaken her faith.

“My mum and dad raised me with this faith, the Catholic Church, and I’m going to live with it; I’m going to die with it,” Ms. Trottier, 74, said. “It’s not God or Jesus that made a mistake. It’s the human beings that made that mistake.”

— Ian Austen

Indigenous communities seek healing and consider the impact of the pope’s apology.

MASKWACIS, Alberta — Survivors of the abuses in Canada’s church-run residential schools and advocates for Indigenous people listened to Pope Francis beg for forgiveness on Monday in a damp field that resonated with generations of pain and trauma.

Before his speech, the pope prayed at the nearby Ermineskin cemetery. He was pushed in a wheelchair by aides and lowered his head as he visited graves. Survivors gathered to hear his remarks weighed what the apology meant.

“Today means hope and healing,” said Leanne Louis, 52, who wore a traditional ribbon skirt and held an Eagle Staff representing the Montana First Nation in Maskwacis. “Hope for a better future for all of our residential school survivors.”

Ms. Louis said she herself was a survivor of the Maskwacis school, which she attended as a day student, and where she was beaten by teachers and sexually abused by other students as a third grader.

She said she had a mental block of the time, forgetting the names of teachers and their faces. Her mother, she said, also suffered physical and sexual abuse at the school and was broken by it. “She became an alcoholic,” said Ms. Louis, who has four children. “She drank 24/7. I was raised by my grandparents and made the choice to never touch alcohol.”

But the grandparents who raised her were also survivors of the same school, though they never spoke a word about it. Her grandfather went deaf as a boy studying there and developed a lifelong animosity for education. “He hated education,” she said, adding that it was an insidious result of his abuse there. “He hated school.”

“It’s a first good step,” Chief Leeketchemonia, 50, of the Keseekoose First Nation, said of the pontiff’s apology, “but a lot more work needs to be done.”

He said he hoped it would “get the healing started” and said there needed to be “more involvement on the church’s behalf to support First Nations and to regain trust. A lot of our elders say that can be given will ever make up for what was taken away from them.”

Leah Omeasoo Gillette, 40, of the Samson Cree Nation, which also lived on the Maskwacis reservation, performed for Francis as a dancer, wearing a Jingle Dress, also known as a healing dress, which jangled with tin cones.

While she was herself not a survivor of the schools, she said she considered herself “an intergenerational survivor.”

“I have experience trauma in my life,” she said, “and I believe it all stemmed from the residential schools.”

Before the pope arrived, Elder Ted Quewezance, a residential school survivor from Keeseekoose First Nation, who has played a leading role in the search for children’s graves around the schools, said, “You will have to decide if you will accept or reject the apology.”

“Most of my life I was a very angry man and a very hurt man,” he said, his voice breaking as friends and family rubbed his back. “All that’s happened to me, I know that accepting the apology will help me let go of my pain. When you are abused, that is all you think about it. You relive the experience over and over again.”

Canada’s residential schools were a system of ‘cultural genocide,’ a commission found.

The investigation into Canada’s scandalous system of mandatory residential schools for Indigenous children was among the most comprehensive reviews in the country’s history, taking testimony from more than 6,000 witnesses and reviewing thousands of documents over six years.

And, in the end, the conclusion of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission was unambiguous: “Children were abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world.”

From the 1880s through the 1990s, the Canadian government forcibly removed at least 150,000 ​Indigenous children from their homes and sent ​them t​o residential schools to assimilate them. ​Their languages and religious and cultural practices were banned, sometimes using violence. It was, the ​commission ​reported in 2015, a system of “cultural genocide.”

Because of the schools, generations of Indigenous children were raised by adults, including priests and nuns, who had little understanding of their roles, and many students developed mental health and substance abuse problems from the trauma they suffered at the schools.

The number of students who died at the schools is still a matter of historical research. But Murray Sinclair, a former judge, senator and head of the commission, said he estimates that the figure exceeds 10,000 children .

Searching for the Unmarked Graves of Indigenous Children

For more than a century, indigenous children in canada were forced to attend residential schools, where many endured abuse. thousands were never seen again and survivors were long ignored. we followed a team of archaeologists who came to the muskowekwan first nation to search for the graves of these lost children..

“What residential school was, and still is, is a nightmare.” For more than a century, Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their homes and sent to residential schools to forcibly assimilate them into white society. And thousands were never seen again. Now, more than 20 years after the last school shut down, searches for the remains of these lost children are happening across the country. “There’s nothing on the surface, but once we interpret the data, we can see if we can find these children.” We followed a team of archaeologists who came to the Muskowekwan First Nation to investigate what lies beneath the ground. “There is unmarked graves there. They’re all over the place. But nothing has been done.” Here, some residential school survivors hope that scientific evidence will reveal to the rest of the world a truth they’ve long known. “These stories are real. I saw something in here. And people have never listened.” Harvey Desjarlais was taken to residential school when he was 6 1/2 years old. “And I remember being locked in the dorm. I cried so much because of the harshness. Small boys’ dorm — this is where we were kept. They shave your head, cut off your braids. Right here, a boy hung himself. I found him hanging. He wasn’ t hanging. He was laying there. He was already —” Generations of Indigenous children suffered physical and sexual abuse inside the boarding schools. They were established by the Canadian government and initially run by the Catholic Church. “This used to be the chapel over here. This is where we used to pray 10 times a day. They used to call us little savages. ‘You little savage. Your ceremonies, that’s paganism.’ That’s how they spoke to us.” After his years as a student, Harvey worked as the school’s caretaker for 22 years. Today, he still visits the grounds of the former school, even though it shut down in 1997. “I come here just about every day. I have a dream of elders. You know, like calling. And I know what they’re calling about. They’re our children.” “You look at your map. And you could just draw a circle so we could find out exactly where these graves are.” The First Nation has invited archaeologists to search for unmarked graves, and survivor testimony will be crucial. Elders have long shared stories of what happened at these schools but were rarely believed outside their community. “We lived on top of the graves for many, many years. But we couldn’t do nothing. There’s a big hill over here — all graves, all graves.” “About the researchers coming here, it’s been a long time coming.” Laura Oochoo is Harvey’s longtime partner. She also went to the Muskowekwan Residential School. “I’m at a place where I’m trying to understand, what’s this all mean for — for all of us right now? People are angry with the finding of our kids. This horror, it’s living with that. They deserve to be honored and respected, you know? That’s all I think that they would want.” “I’m very confident that there is something there.” The archaeologists Terence Clark and Kisha Supernant are leading the search effort. They’re using ground-penetrating radar to locate burial sites. The rest of the team is made up of graduate students, including Micaela Champagne, who, along with Kisha, is Indigenous. “So I’ve been an archaeologist now for about 20 years. And with Indigenous communities, they would prefer, often, to have less destructive methods, so ways to not disturb a lot of earth. So there’s a bunch of them. And that’s a 3-year-old.” “And it’s all in the same year.” “The work that we’re doing with the ground-penetrating radar is to locate children’s graves. And before we really get into that, we need to understand how many children we’re looking for.” Many of the records from this era are incomplete or have been destroyed, but the documents that remain contain clues to some deaths and abuses. “There’s a couple sort of suspicious-y ones that are, like, 14 years old.” “Babies, it’s babies.” Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated residential schools, and in a 2015 report, concluded that many children died from malnourishment, disease and suicide. “This was a deliberate act to colonize, ‘to extinguish the Indian in the child.’ That’s a direct quote.” “The mastery of words.” “This was planned, it was callous, and abuse and death were known about.” “I was gang-raped by a gang in the school, you know? And after I went through all the turmoil of sexual assault, I became suicidal in school. I was 12 years old when I tried to commit suicide. A lot of us that came out of that school had a hard time.” Harvey’s come to the school to show researchers where to look in person. “My name’s Harvey.” “I’m Terry.” “I was here since 1949.” “Wow.” “I went to school here 17 years, and I worked here another 22 years. From here, all the way this way, it has to be looked at. There was bodies all along, up to about the bottom, where the line is about there, just maybe past there.” “OK.” “All right, let’s maybe put it all down, and we’ll smudge before I put anything in the ground here.” “Sounds good.” “Archaeology has a very dark past about stealing Indigenous remains. And there was something in me that was telling me that this is something that I have to be a part of. The equipment’s actually quite heavy. It’s kind of representative of helping to shoulder some of that weight from those communities.” “So the ground-penetrating radar basically takes a electromagnetic wave and sends it down to the ground from a sensor at a particular frequency. So the higher the frequency, the tighter the wave. And it sends that down. And it’s basically measuring what’s reflected back.” After scanning the ground for four days, the team processes the data and stitches it together in 3D to see if the resulting images show any signs of children’s remains. “From four and a half to seven and a half, there’s just a lot of stuff something going on.” “Something going on there, yeah.” “This is the type of shape that we have found. The color pattern, you can almost imagine a child lying on its side in that pit. We’ve had survivors tell us to look in this spot. There’s no other sort of natural phenomenon to explain why you’d have this oval pit underneath the surface. And then the fact that there are eight to 10 or 12, all of those things together, um, yeah.” “It’s about as certain as we can get. “Yeah.” “That’s heartbreaking.” “This is why we do it. It’s just — it shows the value of what we’re doing.” “And there’s thousands of these across the country. Thousands. People deserve answers, and they deserve justice.” This time, they’ve discovered two unmarked graves. But researchers say they expect to find over 80 more at Muskowekwan. They still have large swaths of land around the school left to scan. “It’s in our traditional belief that our ancestors are constantly walking beside us and with us to give us strength. We turned a corner, and there was the boiler room. The boiler room was used as a way to get rid of some of the remains and children. It was difficult, but I also needed to understand, as a granddaughter of a survivor, what she went through.” “We’re supposed to be these objective scientists, but there are these moments of emotion. Sometimes they’re joy, sometimes they’re sorrow, and everything in between.” “Underneath that grief and everything, you can sometimes feel relief.” After the ground sonar identifies where bodies might be buried, the First Nation hopes to have a traditional feast and ceremony to honor the children who died at the school. The next step is for the community to decide whether they want to unearth the remains. “Do you think that all this is giving closure to the era of residential school? I think so.” “I think so, yeah.” “It’s making the choice to heal away from the trauma, the abuse. We know who we are. We come from this Creator-given land. That’s who we are.”

Death came in many forms . Diseases like the Spanish flu and tuberculosis raced through the overcrowded schools. Many had farms tended by students where accidents, sometimes fatal, occurred. Malnutrition, a result of underfunding, was rife at many schools. And fires destroyed several of the remote schools, often with students trapped inside.

While the federal government funded and established the system, it turned to churches to operate most of them, which in most cases used the schools as missionary outposts. Depending on the period of time, the Roman Catholic Church operated between 60 and 70 percent of the schools, with Protestant denominations running the balance.

The nation’s attention refocused on the legacy of the schools last year after analyses of ground-penetrating radar revealed evidence of more than 1,000 remains buried in unmarked graves around several schools. For most of the time that the system operated, the government refused to reimburse the churches for burials or to pay to return students’ bodies to their communities.

The ground-penetrating radar searches continue at many school sites, and many communities are expected to hold difficult discussions about whether to exhume the remains.

The place where the pope delivered his apology is notorious among survivors.

Pope Francis’s first apology in Canada to Indigenous people for the abuse they suffered at residential schools was made in an intimate setting, at the Ermineskin Cree Nation, the site of one of the 130 schools that were once spread across most of Canada.

The former Indian Residential School that stood at Ermineskin , a town of just over 3,000 people that is 60 miles south of Edmonton, Alberta, was not among the most notorious or the largest schools in the system. But like all of them, it was a place of horrors for the children forced to attend it between 1894 and 1976.

“As a survivor, I know what is to come will be painful,” Chief Randy Ermineskin of the Ermineskin First Nation said in a statement. “Just seeing pictures of the schools, remembering the hallways, the classrooms, how we were treated — it is triggering. It’s emotional.”

Established by Roman Catholic missionaries, the Ermineskin school became overcrowded early on, a product of the federal government’s chronic underfunding of its system, which a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission found was set up to eradicate Indigenous languages and cultures.

That overcrowding caused the spread of disease through Ermineskin’s dorms. The federal government estimated that in the 1920s half its students had tuberculosis.

And there was worse, according to testimony from former Ermineskin students. Many described suffering physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the school.

Last year, the Ermineskin Cree Nation brought in technicians from a Montreal-based engineering firm to search the former school grounds and nearby cemeteries for the remains of former students in unmarked graves, a process still underway. It followed the announcement that there was evidence of 215 grave sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, a revelation that shocked the nation.

The government took control of the school from the church in 1969. The dorms were closed shortly afterward and it continued as a day school until 1976.

Francis did not see any of the school buildings that continue to haunt the memories of former students. They were long ago demolished and replaced by a black stone monument bearing a drawing of the school, its name and dates of operation, along with the inscription “Honoring Our Survivors” in English and Cree.

Records to fill gaps about residential schools are sought from Catholic groups.

ROME — Much remains unknown about the specific operations of Canada’s church-run residential schools, in part, some critics say, because Catholic orders that ran them have only recently begun to open their archives.

Kimberly Murray, a Mohawk lawyer who was executive director of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated the residential school system until 2015, said that at that time, “Catholic entities” had been “the most difficult’’ to get records from.

Sometimes, she said, that was because there were so many different entities — orders, congregations, dioceses — that had to be dealt with individually.

The residential schools were run by various Christian denominations, but most were run by the Catholic Church. Each Catholic order, though, kept its own records, which would not have been shared with the Holy See, an archivist at the Vatican said.

But Stephanie Scott, executive director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, a Canadian archive and research body, said last year’s discovery of signs of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia had “changed the landscape across the country, not only with the church, but also the federal government.”

Earlier this year, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which managed the most schools, 48 in all, gave Raymond Frogner, the center’s archivist, access to the congregation’s historical records . Mr. Frogner found administrative records, as well as photographs of life at residential schools that “could give some indication of children who perhaps might have been known to be lost,” he told the CBC .

“It has changed, we are on the right path, the right road,” said Ms. Scott. “It is not an ideal, perfect situation yet.”

Access to the archive in Rome was “the result of ongoing dialogue and communication” with the Oblate religious community in Canada, which last year pledged to make all its archives available after unmarked graves were found in June 2021 at the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, which the Oblates had operated.

The Oblates said at the time that they were committed “to establish the truth of what happened in residential schools,” and the order’s involvement in running them.

Ms. Scott said that since the discovery of the unmarked graves last year there had been a groundswell of support from the Oblates but also provincial and community archives and two other Catholic congregations.

“From where I am sit and seven years later, following the close of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we are in a position where we are now able to gather further information that the TRC did not previously hold and some of the challenges that they faced,” she said.

“The landscape has changed, and it’s only through the spirit of the children guiding that process, because I can tell you that until this point we were struggling,” she said. “People would not reach out to us, and all of a sudden they are, asking how they can help. So I am hopeful,” she said.

— Elisabetta Povoledo

A chief marvels on a 32-year effort to expose wrongdoing and get redress.

OTTAWA — The events that led to Pope Francis’ coming to Canada to offer an apology to Indigenous people for the harm they suffered in church-run schools can be traced to a Canadian television program that aired 32 years ago .

During it, Phil Fontaine, then a regional chief in Manitoba, told an interviewer in often harrowing detail about being abused as a student at residential schools run by the Roman Catholic Church. His story was a revelation to non-Indigenous Canadians.

“Then, there was very little known about the residential school experience; it just wasn’t a factor in the lives of ordinary Canadians,” Mr. Fontaine said last week in an interview as he prepared to travel to meet the pope at the site of a former residential school. “I thought that the best way to come to grips with this issue was to go public and, in effect, call out the church.”

But Mr. Fontaine did not just retell what had happened to him. He also presented a list of demands: that school records be opened to allow researchers to determine what happened, that there be a public inquiry and, finally, that former students get a formal apology.

With the pope’s apology on Monday, Mr. Fontaine will finally have achieved all those goals after decades of resistance.

Along the way, Mr. Fontaine became the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations and a leading plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit. That suit was eventually settled, with apologies and billions of dollars in reparations from the federal government, which established the system, and the Protestant churches that ran some of them.

Perhaps just as important, the settlement established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission , which heard from more than 6,000 witnesses and combed through documents to tell the grim story of the schools, where thousands of children died and sexual and physical abuse was widespread.

Mr. Fontaine also continued to push the Vatican, meeting privately as chief with Pope Benedict XVI. No apology came from a pope until this year, though, and the Catholic church has paid only a sliver of the 25 million Canadian dollars (about $19.3 million) it agreed to raise in reparations as part of the lawsuit settlement.

Like most Indigenous people, Mr. Fontaine does not believe that the process of reconciliation is even close to being finished. But he does marvel at the progress he and many others achieved over three decades.

“This speaks to the incredible persistence and resiliency of our community to stay focused on getting things done right,” Mr. Fontaine said. “We didn’t anticipate that we would be as successful as we were.”

The United States also ran an abusive school system for Native American children.

As Pope Francis traveled to Canada this week to apologize for the church’s role in residential schools for Indigenous children, the United States also continued to wrestle with the legacy of its government-run schools for Native American children.

An initial investigation commissioned by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and released this year cataloged some of the brutal conditions that Native American children endured at more than 400 boarding schools that the U.S. federal government forced them to attend between 1819 and 1969. The inquiry was an initial step, Ms. Haaland said, toward addressing the “intergenerational trauma” that the policy left behind.

An Interior Department report released on Wednesday highlighted the abuse of many of the children at the U.S.-government-run schools, with instances of beatings, withholding of food and solitary confinement. It also identified burial sites at more than 50 of the former schools, and said that “approximately 19 federal Indian boarding schools accounted for over 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian child deaths.” The number of recorded deaths is expected to grow, the report said.

The report is the first step in a comprehensive review that Ms. Haaland, the first Native American U.S. cabinet secretary , announced in June after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of children who attended similar schools in Canada provoked a national reckoning there.

Beginning in 1869 and until the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children in the United States were taken from their homes and families and placed in the boarding schools, which were operated by the government and churches.

There were 20,000 children at the schools by 1900; by 1925, the number had more than tripled, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, based in Minneapolis.

The discovery of the unmarked graves in western Canada last year — 215 in British Columbia , 750 more in Saskatchewan — led Ms. Haaland to announce in May of this year that her agency would search the grounds of former schools in the United States and identify any remains. Ms. Haaland’s grandparents attended such schools.

“The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies — including the intergenerational trauma caused by the family separation and cultural eradication inflicted upon generations of children as young as 4 years old — are heartbreaking and undeniable,” Ms. Haaland said during a news conference. “It is my priority to not only give voice to the survivors and descendants of federal Indian boarding school policies, but also to address the lasting legacies of these policies so Indigenous peoples can continue to grow and heal.”

— Mark Walker

Tensions linger over what the Catholic Church owes school survivors.

Although Pope Francis has apologized to Indigenous people for the harm they suffered at residential schools operated by the Roman Catholic Church, another major point of contention still looms over the church’s relationship with Canada’s first people.

Unlike the Canadian government and the Protestant denominations that also ran residential schools, the Catholic Church has largely not fulfilled its commitments under a landmark class action settlement to compensate former students.

As the pope participates in reconciliation events in Canada this week, hopes remain high that he will back up the church’s apology with steps toward reparations.

Under a settlement in 2006 of a class action brought by former students, most of the 4.7 billion Canadian dollars paid in reparations came from the federal government. Protestant churches paid about 9.2 million Canadian dollars.

But the Catholic Church, which ran about 70 percent of the more than 130 schools, has paid just 1.2 million of the 25 million Canadian dollars it had agreed to raise in cash contributions as compensation. The schools operated from the 1870s until 1996.

That anemic fund-raising effort was partly because the Catholic Church lacks a central governing body in Canada, unlike its Protestant counterparts.

But the church was also effectively released from its obligations when a Conservative government led by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided in 2015 not to appeal a key court decision in favor of the church.

That decision sided with church lawyers, who argued that the 1.2 million-dollar payment settled all of its obligations.

Why the government backed off from a legal challenge is unclear.

“This was a decision of the previous Conservative government,” Justine Leblanc, a spokeswoman for Marc Miller, the current Indigenous affairs minister, wrote in an email. “We cannot speculate as to their internal decision-making process.”

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafonde, the academic director of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, accused the government of giving the Catholic Church special consideration.

“The federal government — as administrator of the settlement — treated the Catholic entity differently from other churches almost from the beginning,” she wrote in an analysis last December. “It permitted the Catholic entity to make ‘best efforts’ to raise funds to fulfill obligations and, from what is known, did only minimal monitoring of whether the entity met its obligations.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced last year that it had launched another fund-raising attempt, this time with a target of collecting 30 million Canadian dollars over five years.

So far the church has raised 4.6 million Canadian dollars.

— Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai

Indigenous leaders want the Vatican to return their heritage.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s museums are undoubtedly best known for their masterpieces by Caravaggio, Raphael and Michelangelo. But unbeknownst to many, the Vatican also has an ethnological museum with some 80,000 pieces that originated from cultural items assembled for a 1925 exhibition sponsored by Pope Pius XI.

The “Vatican Missionary Exposition,” as it was known, consisted of cultural material from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania “minutely and vividly portraying the life and customs of natives in every corner of the globe where Catholic missionaries are engaged,” The Associated Press wrote at the time. Held in the Vatican gardens, the exhibition drew more than one million visitors.

Indigenous leaders in Canada now want some of these pieces back.

Last December, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, a group that represents the interests of Inuvialuit people, called for the “immediate return of all Indigenous artifacts held in the collection of the Vatican Museum.” The group singled out an Inuvialuit kayak that it described in a statement “as a piece of Inuvialuit history, made by Inuvialuit hands in Inuvialuit traditions.”

“It is not ‘the pope’s kayak,’” the group said.

The kayak was one of several pieces shown to representatives from Canadian Indigenous communities during a visit to the Museums last spring as part of their weeklong visit to the Vatican. Other items included moccasins, jewelry and thread-embroidered gloves.

After the trip, several delegates told Canadian news media that at least some of the material should be repatriated.

A sacred ceremonial pipe, for example, has no business being in the Vatican Museums, said Norman Yakeleya, from the Dene Nation in the Northwest Territories. He suggested that plastic models could be displayed instead.

Cody Groat, a Kanyen’kehaka citizen from Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve, Ontario, and an assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at Western University in London, Ontario, said the items in the Vatican belonged where they originated.

“They have meaning that is contemporary to us today, they have teachings that they can provide us today,” Professor Groat said. “They’re not something that we are just going to put on display. It’s something we are going to use to help revitalize our culture and our nations.”

But the Vatican, he said, might be reluctant to repatriate items because of the precedent it could set. “It’s not just a Canadian nation issue,” Professor Groat said.

Cultural items from North America are not currently on exhibit at “Anima Mundi,” or “soul of the world,” the name of the ethnological collection. The museum is instead showcasing the permanent collection from Australia and Oceania.

Gloria Bell, who teaches art history at McGill University in Montreal, said her research countered the Vatican’s official narrative that the items in its collection were gifts given to the pope for the 1925 exhibition.

Given archival records and the history of missionary labor at church-run residential schools where Indigenous children were forcibly sent, Professor Bell said, “it’s clear that some of these were sent under coercive circumstances.”

“Using the term gift glosses over the colonial legacy of the Anima Mundi exhibition and how the majority of this collection was acquired,” she said.

Key moments on the path to the pope’s apology.

TORONTO — The last church-run residential schools in Canada that Indigenous children were forced to attend, and where many were abused, closed in the 1990s. Since then, the Canadian government and Indigenous communities have worked to address the profound damage inflicted there, which continues to reverberate today.

Here are five important moments leading to the apology Pope Francis is to deliver to Indigenous communities on Monday.

A brutal system of abuse in the name of assimilation.

The Indian Act of 1876 allowed the Canadian government to establish the residential schools, most of which were operated by the Roman Catholic Church and were meant to assimilate Indigenous children by erasing their culture and languages.

They were punished for speaking Indigenous languages, wearing their hair in braids or practicing religion outside of what was being taught at school.

Over more than a century, roughly 150,000 students attended some 130 schools, where many were sexually abused, malnourished and fell sick from the poor conditions. Many died or never returned home.

As the number of students dwindled, the last of the schools closed in 1996, ushering in a period of national reckoning, including official investigations, over Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people.

A major class action settlement for former students.

As a result of a lawsuit by former students at the schools, Canadian courts approved a sweeping class-action settlement that has paid out more than 3.2 billion Canadian dollars to about 28,000 survivors, according to a 2021 repor t by an independent committee overseeing the settlement.

In addition to financial compensation, the settlement also included funding for other initiatives, such as memorials and other commemorative projects and a program that provides mental health services to survivors and their families.

A national commission leads to a reckoning with a grim past.

A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission created in 2007 as part of the settlement agreement hosted gatherings in seven cities across the country to, among other things, hear the firsthand accounts of Indigenous people who had been sent to residential schools.

At local hearings, survivors shared their stories of Catholic monks raping children younger than 10 and hungry students resorting to stealing apples from orchards to eat.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an official apology from the government to Indigenous communities.

Evidence of unmarked graves discovered at residential schools.

Last year, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in British Columbia said it had found evidence of unmarked graves of 215 children on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which was once the largest in Canada, with about 500 students.

The discovery, made using ground-penetrating radar, shocked Canadians and revived a national discourse around the horrors of residential schools.

Several other communities also announced preliminary findings of possible unmarked graves on former residential school grounds. Last June, Cowessess First Nation said it had found 751 possible unmarked graves at the site of a school in Saskatchewan.

A trip to Italy and a papal apology.

In the spring, a delegation of Indigenous leaders from Canada traveled to the Vatican, and received a hoped-for apology from Pope Francis.

“I feel shame — sorrow and shame — for the role” that Catholics played “in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values,” Francis said . He also promised to travel to Canada and deliver a personal apology.

Ian Austen contributed reporting from Ottawa.

— Vjosa Isai

Papal apologies have a long tradition in a church with a troubled legacy.

VATICAN CITY — When Pope Francis apologized in Canada for the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement in a system of boarding schools that abused Indigenous children for more than a century, he wasn’t the first pontiff to try to make belated amends.

During his 27-year papacy, Saint John Paul II issued some 100 apologies, some specific, others broad.

Visiting the Dominican Republic in 1992 , John Paul recalled “the enormous suffering” endured by the Indigenous people during centuries of colonization. “We must in all sincerity acknowledge the abuses that were committed,” he said.

In 2000, the pope issued a sweeping apology for two millennia worth of past sins, citing religious intolerance and injustice toward Jews, Muslims, women, immigrants, the poor, Indigenous peoples, and others.

And a year later, writing to the church in Oceania , the area that includes Australia, New Zealand and scattered South Pacific islands, John Paul II expressed deep regret for “the shameful injustices done to Indigenous peoples,” lamenting the role that members of the Church may have played, “especially where children were forcibly separated from their families,” he wrote. (A footnote: it was the first papal document posted via the internet.)

Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter in 2010 to Irish Catholics saying he was “truly sorry” about the abuses suffered by Irish children, including those who were abused in residential institutions.

And he met with Canadian Indigenous leaders in 2009 , expressing “sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the Church” in Canada. He offered “his sympathy and prayerful solidarity,” adding that “acts of abuse cannot be tolerated in society,” but stopped short of a full apology.

Pope Francis has been more decisive. While on a 2015 trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, Pope Francis issued a direct apology for the complicity of the Roman Catholic Church in the oppression of Latin America during the colonial era. “I say this to you with regret: many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God,” Francis told a gathering of social activists, farmers, workers and Bolivian Indigenous people in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

He then “humbly” asked for forgiveness. “Not only for the offenses of the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” he said.

Two years later, Francis apologized for the “sins and failings of the Church and its members, among whom priests, and religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission” in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

In 2020, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, wrote a letter to Pope Francis demanding a public apology for the abuses inflicted on the Indigenous peoples of Mexico.

A year later, Francis wrote to Mexican bishops urging clergy members to “recognize the painful errors committed in the past,” and calling on them to re-examine the role the church had played in the country’s history. The letter prompted controversy among the political right in Spain , which rallied behind the country’s role in conquering the Americas 500 years ago.

How a papal resignation has complicated Pope Francis’s tenure.

ROME — Over the last few weeks, close watchers of the Roman Catholic Church have carefully studied shadows on the Vatican walls for proof that Pope Francis is about to retire .

They pointed at an unexpected move to create new cardinals in August as a sign that Francis, 85, was stacking the college that will pick his successor before an early exit. They read deep into his planned visit to an Italian town with a connection to a medieval pope who called it quits. They saw the pope’s use of a wheelchair and his cancellation of a trip to Africa as evidence of his papacy’s premature ending, despite Vatican explanations about a healing right knee.

But in an interview this month, Francis, who is on the second day of a planned six-day visit to Canada, dispelled the rumors, calling the supposed evidence mere “coincidences” and telling Reuters that the idea of resignation “never entered my mind. For the moment no. For the moment, no. Really.”

The only shadow that seemed real then was the one cast by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first pontiff to retire in nearly 600 years . In doing so, he changed the nature, and perception, of the papacy from a lifetime mission assigned by the Holy Spirit to a more earthly calling, subject to political pressures, health assessments and considerations about the church’s best interests.

“Now it is much easier to envision a resignation because Benedict paved the way for that, and it changed our perception,” said Giovanna Chirri , a veteran Vatican reporter who broke the news of Benedict’s retirement when she understood the pope, to the shock of the cardinals around him, tender his resignation while speaking in Latin. “It is not like before.”

For all of Benedict’s struggles to leave a mark on the church, his papacy is often remembered for its public relations missteps and inconvenient revelations about dysfunction within the Vatican. But the German pontiff’s decision to quit transformed the office, creating pre-Benedict and post-Benedict eras when it comes to the expectations of how long popes will stay in power.

Francis is clearly living in the post-Benedict era, often leaving open the possibility of one day resigning if declining health made it impossible to run the church.

“But when the time comes that I see that I can’t do it, I will do it,” Francis said again of retirement in the Reuters interview. “And that was the great example of Pope Benedict. It was such a very good thing for the church. He told popes to stop in time. He is one of the greats, Benedict.”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

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Vatican releases pope’s Canada itinerary, a sign trip is on

Pope Francis arrives to attend the Festival of Families in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, on the first day of the World Meeting of Families, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis reaches out to a young boy as he attends the Festival of Families in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, on the first day of the World Meeting of Families, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

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ROME (AP) — The Vatican on Thursday released the itinerary for Pope Francis’ July 24-30 visit to Canada, providing a sign he intends to go ahead with the trip despite knee problems that forced him to cancel a six-day visit to Africa also planned for next month.

Francis is due to visit Canada to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses they suffered at Catholic-run residential schools.

The scaled-back itinerary includes several encounters with Indigenous groups, as well as a visit to Maskwacis, home to the former Ermineskin Residential School, one of the largest residential school sites in Canada. Alberta, where Francis lands first, is home to the largest number of former residential schools in Canada.

Francis will also have a private meeting with survivors of the schools in remote Iqualuit, where he is due to visit for a few hours on his way back to Rome on July 29.

Francis, 85, has been using a wheelchair for over a month because of strained ligaments in his right knee that have made standing and walking difficult. The Canadian bishops conference said Francis’ appearance at individual public events would be limited to one hour, “due to his advanced age and limitations.”

The publication of the itinerary was delayed for nearly two weeks, leading to speculation Francis might be forced to cancel traveling to Canada as he did his before a planned July 2-7 pilgrimage to Africa.

And the itinerary doesn’t mean the trip is 100% confirmed, since there is now precedent for the Vatican pulling the plug after one was released.

The Vatican published the schedule for Francis’ planned trip to Congo and South Sudan on May 28. It announced on June 10 that the pope’s visit would have to be postponed until an undetermined later date because of doctors’ concerns the trip might jeopardize the therapy he is undergoing.

The Vatican has released no details about the type of therapy he is receiving beyond knee injections. The Canada itinerary is light for a typical papal trip, for the most part featuring only one major event each morning and one each afternoon to allow for maximum rest time.

Francis met with Indigenous groups earlier this year at the Vatican and offered a historic apology for the abuses they endured.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil. Francis said at the time of his Vatican meetings that he hoped to make the apology in person this summer.

Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations who was part of delegation that met with Francis at the Vatican, called Thursday’s update “wonderful news.”

“He made a commitment to us at the Vatican, and he’s following through with that commitment,” Fontaine said.

“People were anxious that his health issues would force the cancellation of the Canadian papal tour, but clearly he sees it as important. It is a testament to his sincerity,” he added.

Fontaine, 77, said he and his classmates suffered physical and sexual abuse when he was a boy at the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School in Manitoba

More than 150,000 native children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from their homes and culture. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.

The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools, and that students were beaten for speaking their native languages. Indigenous leaders say the legacy of abuse and family separation as a root cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction on Canadian reservations.

“We know that the Holy Father was deeply moved by his encounter with Indigenous Peoples in Rome earlier this year, and that he hopes to build on the important dialogue that took place,” the coordinator of the Canada visit, Archbishop Richard Smith, said in a statement.

The president of the Canadian Catholic bishops’ conference, Bishop Raymond Poisson, thanked organizers and offered prayers for the pope.

“We pray for the health of Pope Francis and also that his pastoral visit to Canada will bring reconciliation and hope to all those who will accompany our shepherd on this historic journey,” Poisson said in a statement.

Gillies contributed from Toronto.

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Speeches delivered by Pope Francis during visit to Canada

His Holiness, Pope Francis, completed his apostolic journey to Canada from July 24th – July 30th, 2022. On this “pilgrimage of penance”, he made a series of public statements regarding Indigenous reconciliation and healing. You will find electronic copies of these statements hyperlinked below.

• Address of the Holy Father: Meeting with Indigenous Peoples – First nations, Métis and Inuit – at Maskwacis (25/07/2022)
• Address of the Holy Father: Meeting with Indigenous Peoples and Members of the Parish Community at Sacred Heart (25/07/2022)
• Homily of the Holy Father at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton (26/07/2022)
• Homily of the Holy Father at Lac Ste. Anne (26/07/2022)
• Address of the Holy Father: Meeting with Civil Authorities, Representatives of Indigenous Peoples and Members of the Diplomatic Corps at the Citadelle in Quebec (27/07/2022)
• Homily of the Holy Father at the National Shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré (28/07/2022)
• Homily of the Holy Father at Vespers with Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Consecrated persons, Seminarians and Pastoral workers at the Cathedral of Notre Dame (28/07/2022)
• Address of the Holy Father: Meeting with Young People and Elders at a primary school in Iqaluit (29/07/2022)

For general reference, please visit: Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Canada (24-30 July 2022) | Francis (vatican.va)

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Crossing the border to participate in the visit of Pope Francis to Canada? The CBSA gives tips for a smoother trip for travellers

From: Canada Border Services Agency

News release

His Holiness Pope Francis will visit Canada from July 24 to July 29, with activities planned in the Edmonton area, the Quebec City area and in Iqaluit. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) anticipates that this event will attract many travellers to Canada.

July 22, 2022                   Ottawa, Ontario                Canada Border Services Agency

His Holiness Pope Francis will visit Canada from July 24 to July 29, with activities planned in the Edmonton area, the Quebec City area and in Iqaluit. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) anticipates that this event will attract many travellers  to Canada.

The CBSA reminds all those crossing the border, whether for the visit of Pope Francis or other reasons, of what to expect at the border during this period and throughout the busy summer months.

This summer, travellers are returning to a border that is managed differently, with evolving COVID-19 requirements, which can mean delays during peak periods. The CBSA is working with government and industry partners to mitigate long border wait times, but there are also things that travellers can do to make the process easier for themselves and other travellers.

Travellers can help reduce wait times at the border by coming prepared and by completing their mandatory  ArriveCAN  submission within 72 hours before arriving at the border.

Key tips for all travellers:

• All persons, even returning Canadian residents, must report to the CBSA and declare all goods.
• Ensure you are eligible to enter Canada  Foreign nationals must meet the admissibility requirements under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and provide appropriate travel and immigration documentation . Admissibility decisions on entry are made by a border services officer at the port of entry.  Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and persons registered under the Indian Act can enter by right.
• Understand the rules around COVID-19. There are still border measures in place for COVID-19. They vary depending on who is travelling—foreign nationals, returning residents or Canadian citizens. Answer a few questions to find out which requirements apply to you and if you can enter Canada.
• Travellers must ensure they have the most up-to-date version of the ArriveCAN app (consult the Google Play Store or the App Store for iPhone).
• Travellers should print or take a screenshot of their ArriveCAN receipt and bring it with them when they travel.
• Travellers without a smartphone or without mobile data can submit their information by signing in online through a computing device. If travellers are unable to enter their information themselves, they can have a friend or family member enter the information for them.
• Use the latest technology. Upon arrival at selected major airports in Canada, travellers can use a primary inspection kiosk to verify their travel documents, confirm their identity and complete an on-screen declaration. Also, Advance Declaration is available for air travellers landing in Toronto (YYZ) or Vancouver (YVR) in ArriveCAN (app or Web version) and enables them to complete their customs and immigration declaration in advance of their arrival in Canada. This feature will be expanded to Montreal-Trudeau International Airport later this month and other airports in the future.
• Have all your documents ready . Travellers should have the following ready to present to the border services officer: their ArriveCAN receipt; their passport or travel documents , proof of vaccination; and identification for all persons in the vehicle.
• Cultural artifacts. In most cases, any personal cultural items a traveller wishes to bring into Canada are exempt from the requirement of having a permit under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). However, there are exceptions; travellers should consult  Trade in protected species: permitting exemptions to confirm whether their specific items are exempt and to avoid seizure upon arrival.
• Plan ahead and check  border wait times . Travellers crossing the border by land are encouraged to plan to cross during non-peak hours, such as early morning. The Monday of holiday long weekends tend to be the busiest, with longer border wait times.
• Know the contents of your vehicle. Travellers can consult the CBSA’s website for information on firearms and other restricted and prohibited goods.
• Children. When travelling with children , it is recommended that the accompanying adult have a consent letter authorizing them to travel with the child. Border services officers are always watching for  missing children , and in the absence of the letter, officers may ask additional questions, to help them identify the relationship between the child and the accompanying adult.  

For more information, visit the CBSA Web site or call us at 1-800-461-9999.

Associated links

• The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
• The Canada Border Services Agency reminds boaters of entry and reporting requirements - Canada.ca
• Before You Travel: for fully vaccinated foreign nationals
• Before You Return: for Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and persons registered under the Indian Act
• Border reminder checklist
• COVID-19: Travel, testing and borders
• COVID-19: Vaccinated travellers entering Canada
• Our Missing Children program

For more information or to schedule an interview with a CBSA representative, please contact:

Media Relations

Canada Border Services Agency [email protected] 1-877-761-5945

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Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau

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• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with His Holiness Pope Francis

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Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with His Holiness Pope Francis on the margins of the G7 Summit in Apulia, Italy. 

Prime Minister Trudeau thanked Pope Francis for visiting Canada in July 2022 to engage with Indigenous Peoples on their ancestral lands, acknowledge the truths about the residential school system, and recognize its painful legacy for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in Canada. The Prime Minister and the Pope discussed the importance of continuing to advance Indigenous reconciliation, including the need for the Church to take concrete action to repatriate Indigenous cultural artifacts. 

Associated Links

• Canada and the Holy See
• Canada and the G7
• Statement by the Prime Minister on the personal apology delivered by His Holiness Pope Francis to Survivors of the residential school system in Canada
• Statement by the Prime Minister on the apology from His Holiness Pope Francis regarding the residential school system in Canada
• Prime Minister advances shared progress and prosperity at the G7 Summit

A timeline of previous papal visits to Canada

Prior to commercial air travel, which only became common in the mid-20th century, it was considered historically rare for a Pope to travel beyond Europe.

This is according to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), which says that “the main reason a Pope would travel to another diocese in Italy or to another country in the world is to respond to a particular pastoral need.”

The need today is reconciliation, with Pope Francis gearing up to meet representatives of Indigenous peoples throughout a six-day tour of Canada. His visit is an effort to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in forcing an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children into Canada’s residential school system.

As Pope Francis has arrived in Edmonton, marking the first papal visit to the country in 20 years, CTVNews.ca looks back at other historical visits by a former head of the Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic visit, September 9, 1984

The first papal visit to Canada happened in 1984, when Pope John Paul II stepped off the papal aircraft in Quebec City. The trip entailed a 12-day tour of the country, which included Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, Montreal, St. John’s, Moncton, Halifax, Toronto, Midland (Ontario), Winnipeg/St. Boniface, Edmonton, Yellowknife, Vancouver and Ottawa.

“Speaking in English and in French, the Holy Father made more than 30 major addresses as well as many other statements, some of which were directed to Indigenous Peoples,” reads the CCCB website.

Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic visit, September 20, 1987

The second papal visit to Canada occurred on the morning of September 20, 1987, when Pope John Paul II returned to visit Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories -- a destination on the itinerary of his former visit that had to be cancelled because of weather conditions.

On its site, the CCCB described the visit as a “spiritual celebration.”

Pope John Paul II’s third Apostolic visit, July 23, 2002

The third papal visit occurred in July 2002 for World Youth Day in Toronto, where, according to the CCCB, “a flock of more than 800,000 people gathered at Downsview Park for the closing Papal Mass.”

The Pope spent six days in and around the major Canadian city.

What to expect of Pope Francis’ visit

Among Pope Francis’s scheduled destinations is theformer Ermineskin Indian Residential School in the Alberta community of Maskwacis. This is where he is expected to issue an official apology to Indigenous Peoples for the Catholic Church’s role in residential schools.

The Canadian tour will also bring the pope to Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit.

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Waterloo Region, Wellington County, and the majority of southern Ontario communities are in for a hot and humid week.

City of Kitchener proposes bylaw to protect renters

A rental replacement bylaw is up for discussion in Kitchener. But, the city warns, it would only apply to some tenant evictions.

Waterloo, Ont. student gets recognition at international film festivals

A Grade 12 student in Waterloo, Ont. is getting international recognition for a 3D animated film she created.

Saskatoon business leaders to address police board about crime and safety concerns

Two Saskatoon business leaders are appearing before the city’s police board on Thursday to address their growing concerns about crime and community safety.

Sask. man escapes from second storey window as home goes up in flames

A North Battleford man escaped from a second-storey window with minor cuts and lacerations before his home was completely engulfed in flames on Saturday.

Saskatoon saw a 14 per cent rise in intimate partner violence last year, police say

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Northern Ontario

Ontario Northland bus fire closes part of Highway 400

Part of Highway 400 was closed on Sunday after an Ontario Northland bus caught on fire.

Five taken to hospital in northwest Ont. float plane crash

Canada's Transportation Safety Board is investigating after a float plane operated by a remote northern Ont. fly-in fishing outfitter crashed, sending five people to hospital.

Federal funding finally comes through to replace one of Canada’s worst hospitals in the Far North

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Stabbing victim in hospital with life-threatening injuries, London man in custody

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Police investigating robbery, stabbing, theft

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NTP confirms Owen Sound experienced EF1 downburst in storm

Western University project believes strong downburst wreaked havoc in last week's storm in Owen Sound.

31-year-old passenger on motorcycle dies in two-vehicle crash in Springwater Township

Provincial police are investigating a deadly collision involving a motorcycle in Springwater Township.

First glassware, then a recycling bin, now a flower pot: WindsorEats faces repeated theft while hosting Mexican Village

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Suspect allegedly sets RV on fire to escape police, gets arrested

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Six illegal cannabis storefronts dismantled, including Leamington location

Police dismantled six illegal cannabis storefronts, including one in Leamington.

Vancouver Island

2 hospitalized after targeted shooting in Victoria

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Teenager in critical condition after near-drowning at Vancouver Island lake

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B.C. weather: Sun in forecast after record-breaking low weekend temperatures

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Hunter attacked after shooting bear in B.C.'s Okanagan

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June snow in the forecast for some B.C. highways this weekend

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City providing free daisies for Lethbridge to celebrate loved ones on Father’s Day

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Jack Ady Cancer Centre unveils Amir and Saker Manji Healing Garden

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Investigation underway into fatal pedestrian collision in Lethbridge

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Sault Ste. Marie

Sault suspect charged with attacking victim with a hammer

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Suspected impaired driver from Sudbury arrested near Espanola

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Sudbury man charged with arson in fire at Manitoulin camp

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Babies make a racket — for good reason — at infant music classes

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Princess Anne to visit Newfoundland for 100th anniversary of National War Memorial

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Feuding Labrador Indigenous groups -- one recognized, one not -- celebrate court ruling

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Local Spotlight

Plane stored in Regina hangar for 12 years may soon help with rocket development

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Halifax chef speaks about traumatic brain injury

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House in Ottawa struck by lightning leaving hole in roof: 'We felt mostly shocked'

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'Historic' handshake of Canadian and U.S. ironworkers as Gordie Howe bridge connects

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'If they can run, I can run': 87-year-old set to complete 10th Manitoba Marathon race

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Forgotten soldier’s name added to Almonte, Ont. cenotaph thanks to Grade 6 class

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Toronto politicians, advocates and other prominent figures share important lesson imparted by their fathers

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Canada holds off on sending military trainers back to Ukraine

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'Dumb' or 'unethical': Green leader suggests MPs should have asked more questions

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Japan reports record spike in potentially deadly bacterial infection

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East Coast authorities working on warning signs for great white sharks

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Scientists may have found an answer to the mystery of dark matter. It involves an unexpected byproduct

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'The Outsiders' wins best musical and 'Stereophonic' best play as women make strides at Tony Awards

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Canadian national pleads guilty to stealing Tesla trade secrets

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Tipping in Canada: How much really goes to the employee?

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Trudeau urges Pope to return Indigenous items held in the Vatican’s collection

Indigenous delegates from Canada get access to the Vatican’s collection of Indigenous artifacts that few people have ever seen on March 29, 2022. Willow Fiddler/The Globe and Mail

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Pope Francis on Friday to escalate reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples in Canada by returning cultural items stowed away in the Vatican’s extensive collection of artifacts.

In social media posts on Instagram, Facebook and X, Mr. Trudeau said he thanked the Pope for reconciliation efforts so far, and said he is advocating for the next step – returning cultural belongings to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples in Canada. The Prime Minister had an audience with the Pope during a G7 summit in Apulia, Italy.

Mr. Trudeau’s comments follow a Globe and Mail investigation published in March which found that, despite several public commitments from the Catholic Church about returning such items, little progress has been made.

The public nature of Mr. Trudeau’s comments is significant, said Cody Groat, assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at Western University. “The fact that Justin Trudeau made such a prominent statement on social media about this specific topic, I think will be a turning point in some ways.”

This will likely mean encouraging stronger diplomatic relations on this file with Vatican officials, said Prof. Groat, who is Mohawk and a band member of Six Nations of the Grand River.

The next step, he said, is boosting transparency on what the Vatican actually holds. “We can’t just repatriate every single item right away to the home communities, because we don’t know the culture or ceremony that needs to be associated with these ancestral items. So simply knowing what exists, having a transparent inventory of the Vatican collection, is necessary to start developing and working on that ceremony,” before returning these items closer to home communities, he said.

The Vatican has not disclosed the extent of its holdings of cultural items. In 2022, it briefly displayed some examples of its collection in its ethnological museum to visiting Indigenous delegates. Among them were carved face masks from Canada’s West Coast, embroidered leather gloves of Cree origin, a colourful Gwich’in baby belt, and a rare, century-old Inuvialuit kayak from the Western Arctic.

That display sparked calls by many Inuit, Métis and First Nations representatives to have these items repatriated as part of the reconciliation and healing process. The Catholic Church ran the majority of residential schools in Canada in a system designed to strip children of their language and cultural practices.

Last year, Pope Francis expressed agreement on the importance of restitution. “The restitution of Indigenous things: this is going on, with Canada, at least we were in agreement to do so,” he said.

The Globe reached out to the Holy See press office for comment Friday and did not hear back.

Major Indigenous organizations in Canada have told The Globe this year that they want to see more transparency on the Vatican’s holdings, and eventually, the return of items.

Regarding the kayak, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation has said it is interested in the repatriation of all cultural artifacts, “including the kayak, that have been removed from the region as we work to preserve and revitalize Inuvialuit cultural identity and values within a changing northern society.”

Mr. Trudeau and Pope Francis have discussed this topic before. Two years ago – in July, 2022, while the Pope was in Quebec City, they spoke of the need for the church to “take concrete action” to repatriate Indigenous items that the Vatican holds.

In Friday’s exchange, Mr. Trudeau thanked the Pontiff for his 2022 visit to Canada; a readout of the meeting said they discussed “the need for the Church to take concrete action to repatriate Indigenous cultural artifacts.”

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Canada Defends Sending Ship to Cuba as Vital to Deterring Russia

FILE PHOTO: Canadian navy patrol boat HMCS Margaret Brooke passes by Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine Kazan and frigate Admiral Gorshkov, as it enters Havana’s bay, Cuba, June 14, 2024. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian Liberal government, criticized by opposition legislators for sending a patrol ship to Havana while Russian vessels were there, on Monday said the visit was meant to send a message of deterrence to Moscow.

The Canadian navy patrol ship sailed into the harbor early on Friday, two days after the arrival of a Russian nuclear-powered submarine and a frigate. Canada and the United States said they were closely monitoring the vessels.

"The deployment ... sends a very clear message that Canada has a capable and deployable military and we will not hesitate to do what is required to protect our national interest," Defence Minister Bill Blair told reporters.

"Canadian Armed Forces will continue to track the movements and activities of the Russian ships," he added. "Presence is deterrence. We were present."

Both the U.S. and Cuba say the Russian warships pose no threat to the region. Russia has also characterized the arrival of its warships in allied Cuba as routine.

Canada has traditionally been one of Cuba's closest Western allies and maintained ties after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Relations though tend to be better under Liberal governments, since the official opposition right-of-center Conservatives are more staunchly anti-Communist.

"Why is the Trudeau government sending a Canadian warship to 'celebrate' relations with a communist dictatorship at all - let alone while Russian warships are docked there? Cuba and Russia are not allies of Canada," Conservative foreign affairs spokesman Michael Chong said in a social media post.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid an official visit to Cuba in November 2016. When former leader Fidel Castro died a few days later, Trudeau referred to him as a "remarkable leader", prompting Conservative unhappiness.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

Photos You Should See - June 2024

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Trudeau meets Pope before pontiff's speech on promises, perils of AI

Pope says 'we would condemn humanity to a future without hope' if people let machines think for them.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had a private audience with Pope Francis on Friday as part of his participation in the final day of the G7 leaders' summit in Apulia, Italy.

Trudeau also held meetings Friday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister of Japan Kishida Fumio.

"We just concluded the G7 Leaders' Summit in Apulia, where alongside our G7 partners, we announced comprehensive action to grow dynamic economies, build inclusive communities and keep our air clean," Trudeau said in a media statement at the summit's end.

The prime minister also attended a working session on migration Friday, a subject that is a priority for summit host Italy and its right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. 

Meloni is seeking to increase investment and funding for African nations as a means of reducing migratory pressure on Europe.

The Pope on AI

After meeting Trudeau, the pontiff addressed the G7 leaders on the promises and perils of artificial intelligence, urging them to keep human dignity in mind when developing and using the technology. 

"We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people's ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines," he said.

"We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs. Human dignity itself depends on it."

Pope Francis also called on G7 leaders to ban the use of killer robots.

"No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being," he said."It is up to everyone to make good use of (AI) but the onus is on politics to create the conditions for such good use to be possible."

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Leaders of the G7 countries announced on Thursday that they will deliver a $50 billion US loan to Ukraine using interest earned on profits from Russia's frozen central bank assets as collateral. Canada, for its part, has promised to pitch in $5 billion toward the loan.

Defence Minister Bill Blair, who is meeting with NATO defence ministers in the Belgian capital of Brussels, said Friday that Ukraine has been asking for funding for security and reconstruction and that $50 billion is part of the G7's response.

"They do require certainty for planning," he said, "not just for the immediate response to the battlefield, but also the work that they are going to have to do in the coming years to ensure the security and integrity of their sovereign borders and to undertake a strong period of reconstruction."

Met with members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s Drone Coalition, co-led by Latvia and the United Kingdom.<br><br>To strengthen Ukraine’s capabilities, Canada is donating 900 Canadian-built drones – and funding the production of drones by Ukraine’s domestic industry. <a href="https://t.co/XbvZ9vwxrs">pic.twitter.com/XbvZ9vwxrs</a> &mdash; @BillBlair

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Blair referenced an announcement the government made in April , regarding the donation of 900 drones built in Canada to strengthen Ukraine's defence capabilities.

On his way into Friday's NATO meeting, Blair also referenced already announced changes to the Canadian-led battlegroup in Latvia.

"Canada's increasing our presence in the alliance's eastern flank where we lead NATO's multinational battle group in Latvia," he said. 

• Canada to acquire Swedish-made anti-aircraft system to protect troops in Latvia
• Analysis NATO at 75: Is Canada losing its grip on the world's greatest military alliance?

"We are working to scale up our multilateral [force] to brigade size," Blair added. "As well, Canada is sending the HMCS Charlottetown into the Mediterranean where it is going to assume command of the standing NATO group 2."

Blair's latest announcement on Friday comes as NATO member countries continue to work to meet the group's agreed-upon target of spending two per cent of GDP on their respective militaries.

According to NATO data, Canada was estimated to be spending 1.33 per cent of its GDP on its military budget.

With files from CBC News and The Associated Press

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