Pope Francis will embark on a six-day trip to Canada on July 24 to apologize to the country’s indigenous people for abuses committed against them in church-run residential schools for a century.
According to the Russian news agency, RT newsThe Pontiff will be received by First Nations (local Indigenous peoples), Métis (Mestizos) and the Inuit Indigenous group in Maskwacis, an unincorporated community in central Alberta.
Therefore, on Wednesday July 27, he will meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Quebec City, and on Friday he will have a meeting with some former boarders before returning to Rome.
From the late 19th century to the 1990s, at least 150,000 Indigenous children were placed in 139 residential schools in Canada as part of a government policy of forced assimilation, according to published information.
They also point out that students were forced to spend months or even years isolated from their families, language and culture, and that many were physically and sexually abused by principals and teachers. It is estimated that thousands of miners died of disease, malnutrition or neglect.
“Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutes, have contributed to policies of cultural assimilation which, in the past, have seriously harmed, in different ways, indigenous communities,” acknowledged Sunday the Catholic leader, after defining his trip to the country as a “penitential pilgrimage”.
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