Pope Francis to visit Canada for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples at bishops’ invitation

Bowing to years of pressure from Indigenous groups and Catholics appalled by the residential school’s scandal, Canadian bishops have invited Pope Francis to visit Canada to help in the reconciliation process with the Indigenous peoples.

In a brief statement, the Vatican on Wednesday said that the Pope was invited by the Canadian Conference of Catholics Bishops (CCCB) and that he “has indicated his willingness to visit the country on a date to be settled in due course.”

Vatican officials have always hinted that he was willing to apologize on Canadian soil for the Church’s role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of Indigenous children. But protocol demanded that the CCCB formally invite the pontiff before a trip could happen.

There was no indication when Pope Francis would go to Canada, though it appears his visit is not imminent. The Pope, who is 84, was in poor health in the summer and was in hospital for 10 days recovering from colon surgery. He has resumed traveling within Europe since then.

In a statement, the CCCB said it was “grateful that Pope Francis has accepted their invitation to visit Canada on a pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation.”

The bishops did not explain the timing of the invitation, which comes less than two months before representatives of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit groups are due to make a three-day visit to the Vatican. Pope Francis is to meet with each group individually, then preside over a final audience with all three on Dec. 20.

The Vatican’s announcement came a month after the Canadian Catholic Church “unequivocally” apologized to the Indigenous peoples for the suffering they endured in the residential schools from the 19th century until the 1970s.

Most of the schools were run by Catholic organizations. About 150,000 First Nations children were forced to convert to Christianity amid widespread abuses, with thousands of deaths reported from disease and other causes, not all of which are known. Earlier this year, Canadian investigators, using ground-penetrating radar, found hundreds of graves at two former residential schools.

Marc Miller, the new Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister, said the Pope’s agreement to visit Canada marked a victory for the Indigenous people.

“For the Holy Father, in whom many of the faithful saw a lot of hope when he was installed [in 2013], full and complete recognition of the harm caused to Indigenous peoples was at the top of the list of what they wanted him to see him in Canada,” he told journalists on Wednesday. “I know there are mixed views, mixed perspectives on that. But in the grand scheme of what we call reconciliation for Indigenous people, that full recognition of the harm caused is something waited for from the Holy Father himself.”

Pope Francis has been well aware of the pain caused by to Indigenous groups in the Americas. In 2015, in a landmark speech in Bolivia, he apologized for the “grave sins” of colonialism against Indigenous peoples. “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the Church herself but also for crimes committed against the natives’ peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Pope Francis to visit Canada to apologize when the two met in 2017.

In June, Francis used his regular Sunday Angelus message to speak about the discovery of children’s graves at two residential schools, noting the importance of walking “side by side in dialogue, mutual respect, and recognition of the rights and cultural values of all the daughters and sons of Canada.”

After his Angelus address, Michael Czerny, a Canadian cardinal who is close to the Pope and reports directly to him, told The Globe and Mail that “Pope Francis knows the shock and dismay of what has happened in Canada. Wherever there is suffering, he wants to express his closeness and his condolences.”

Cardinal Czerny declined to comment on the Pope’s agreement to visit Canada.

The CCCB said that, in anticipation of Francis’s visit, “the planned delegation of Indigenous survivors, Elders, knowledge keepers and youth will travel to the Holy See, where they will have the opportunity to speak to Pope Francis about the timing, focus, and themes in preparation for the future pilgrimage to Canada.”