Pope Francis could visit Canada within a year, Indigenous delegates in Rome say – National

Pope Francis may very well be visiting Canada inside the subsequent yr, in keeping with Indigenous delegates who’re in Rome this week.

The delegation of 14 Indigenous survivors, elders, leaders, youth and information keepers was on the Vatican for a gathering with the Pontiff on Thursday. They urged him to journey to Canada to apologize for the church’s function in residential faculties.

“We heard the Holy Father say to us very clearly, the church is with you. And that’s an extremely vital assertion, as a result of the subsequent factor we’ll hear is ‘I’m sorry,’” mentioned Phil Fontaine, former nationwide chief of the Meeting of First Nations and a residential faculty survivor.

“I’m additionally satisfied that this essential second within the lives of our individuals will happen on Canadian soil.”

This go to is predicted to occur “very quickly,” presumably even “earlier than winter,” Fontaine added, citing Archbishop Richard Gagnon, former president of the Canadian Convention of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).

“Earlier than winter, after all, comes the autumn and the summer season. I’m satisfied it’ll be the summer season, and in order that that makes me extraordinarily pleased,” Fontaine mentioned.

Nonetheless, the timeline delegates shared for the potential Papal go to wasn’t agency. Whereas Fontaine mentioned he anticipated the journey to happen inside months, one other delegate mentioned she heard it will likely be in 2023.

“We want to categorical our gratitude for His Holiness Pope Francis’ dedication to visiting Canada within the New Yr,” mentioned Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty of the of Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee.

Ought to Pope Francis ship on this intention to go to, Gull-Masty mentioned she’d like to ask him to go to former residential faculty websites, and to “meet with First Nations survivors, households, leaders.”

She additionally mentioned she’d prefer to see him present an apology — “a significant apology.”

“(An apology) that won’t solely embrace acknowledgment of the harms performed by the Catholic Church, but in addition an admission of accountability,” Gull-Masty defined.

The Pope has to date refused to take accountability for the Catholic Church’s function within the residential faculty system that, till 1997, ripped Indigenous youngsters from their properties and households, solely to put them in amenities the place they had been scolded for talking their language and, in lots of circumstances, abused.

An estimated 150,000 Indigenous youngsters had been pressured to attend residential faculties. Greater than 60 per cent of the faculties had been run by the Catholic Church.

Within the final yr, over a thousand unmarked graves have been discovered at residential faculty websites throughout the nation.

The delegation’s dialogue on Thursday a few potential Papal go to isn’t the primary murmur of Pope Francis’ plan to come back to Canada. In October of final yr, the Vatican mentioned that the Pontiff was prepared to go to Canada. Nonetheless, no date has ever been offered.

The Vatican mentioned in an announcement on the time that the CCCB invited the Pope to journey to Canada within the “context of the long-standing pastoral means of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”

It didn’t make any pledge to apologize.

For Fontaine, “the time is correct” for that apology to occur now.

“The world has been watching us for a while now, and the eyes of the world had been upon all of us right here this previous week…largely due to what transpired in Kamloops, with the invention of the 200 and fifteen unmarked graves,” Fontaine mentioned.

“It shocked Canada out of its complacency with respect to the residential faculty subject. The information of the invention went worldwide.”

He mentioned he was “satisfied,” at that time, that the church had no alternative however to apologize — and that the “rallying cry” of the present journey to Rome has been an “apology on Canadian soil.”

“The indicators are all in entrance of us,” Fontaine mentioned.

“The apology will come.”

— With recordsdata from The Canadian Press