Pope asks for prayers ahead of Canada trip which will include apology to Indigenous groups

By Hana Mae Nassar and Laura Carney

Emotional support or assistance for those who are affected by the residential school system can be found at Indian Residential School Survivors Society toll-free 1 (800) 721-0066 or 24-hr Crisis Line 1 (866) 925-4419.


Final preparations are underway for the Pope’s historic visit to Canada later this week.

Pope Francis will tour Edmonton, Quebec City, and Iqaluit from July 24 to 29 in what he’s referred to as his ‘penitential’ pilgrimage, during which he will apologize to Indigenous groups for abuses inflicted by Catholic institutions.

In his weekly address to people in St. Peter’s Square, Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on his trip to Canada, which comes after the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves at former residential school sites across the country over the past couple of years.

Francis says he hopes this visit will help heal the evil done to Indigenous people and that it will contribute to the path of healing and reconciliation that already has started.

The Pope met with Indigenous representatives earlier this year at the Vatican, where he made a historic apology for the abuses inflicted at church-run residential schools.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called for him to deliver a papal apology on Canadian soil.

Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Canada remains unchanged, despite him having to reschedule last month a trip to Africa to avoid interrupting therapy he had been undergoing for his knee.

He was supposed to be in the Congo from July 2 to 7.

In June, federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said Pope Francis’ health remained an “extreme concern.”

The papal visit comes more than a year after the first confirmation of unmarked graves at a residential school site was announced in B.C. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation released preliminary information on May 27, 2021 after ground-penetrating radar was used to search the area which was formerly the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Dried flowers rest inside a pair of child's running shoes at a memorial for the 215 children whose remains were found at the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School at Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C., on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, June 4, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Dried flowers rest inside a pair of child’s running shoes at a memorial for the 215 children whose remains were found at the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School at Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C., on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, June 4, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

The results of that search sparked a reckoning across Canada and confirmed what many Indigenous communities knew to be true.

In the months after, other similar discoveries were made at former residential schools sites in provinces from coast to coast, with more work underway.

Despite the initial discovery by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, Kamloops is not among the Pope’s planned stops in Canada.

Previously, the Nation’s chief said she and others in her community — and neighbouring ones in B.C. — were disappointed to learn they were not in the initial plans.

“I’m still holding onto a hair of hope that maybe he will change his mind, I’m not too sure. But … in British Columbia alone, there are 204 First Nation communities … that have been impacted by the Residential School that was run by the Roman Catholic Church,” Kúkpi7 Roseanne Casimir said in May.


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Her comments came after she hand-delivered an invitation to Francis at the Vatican a month prior. The invitation was for the Pope to come and meet with survivors and intergenerational survivors of the residential school system.

Meanwhile, communities that are listed in the Pope’s initial itinerary are preparing for the upcoming visit.

In Edmonton, some members of the Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples, a stop on his trip, say his visit will be an opportunity for healing and reconciliation.

Many of the residential schools in Canada officially operated from the late 1800s through most of the 1900s. It’s estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were forced into the system.

Many survivors and their families have provided detailed testimony of physical, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse at the hands of residential school staff. The system has led to intergenerational trauma that continues to affect families and communities to this day.

-With files from Mike Lloyd and The Canadian Press

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