Despite knee pain, Pope Francis’ trip to Canada to meet residential school survivors is on

The Vatican on Thursday released the itinerary for Pope Francis’ July 24-30 visit to Canada. Francis is due to visit Canada to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses they suffered at Catholic-run residential schools.

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.

Some former students testified before the commission that priests at the schools had fathered infants with Indigenous students, that the babies had been taken away from their young mothers and killed, and that in some cases their bodies were thrown into furnaces. Many students also died from disease, accidents, fires and during attempts to escape, according to the commission.

Nearly 1,000 bodies of indigenous children were found in two mass graves in June 2021.

https://samvadaworld.com/featured/genocide-of-indigenous-children-in-canada-catholic-church-run-residential-schools-guilty-of-burying-thousands-of-indigenous-children/

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/06/23/pope-francis-canada-intinerary-243228