On Monday, Pope Francis apologized to Canada’s indigenous people for the Church’s participation in schools where indigenous children were harmed, calling forced cultural assimilation a “deplorable evil” and a “disastrous error.”

Speaking on the site of two former schools in Maskwacis, Alberta, Francis apologized for Christian backing of the times’ “colonizing mindset” and asked for a “serious” inquiry of the schools to assist survivors and descendants recover.

The pope’s message to the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people was his first apology on Canadian territory as part of a mission to heal deep wounds exposed by the discovery of unmarked remains at residential schools last year.
The pope, 85, had promised such a travel to indigenous delegates that met him earlier this year in the Vatican, where he apologized.

Indigenous chiefs wearing eagle-feather battle headdresses welcomed the pope as a brother chief with chanting, drumming, dancing, and war songs.

“I’m here because the first step in my penitential tour among you is to seek pardon again, to say once more that I am profoundly sorry,”

The pope’s message to the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people was his first apology on Canadian territory as part of a mission to heal deep wounds exposed by the discovery of unmarked remains at residential schools last year.
The pope, 85, had promised such a travel to indigenous delegates that met him earlier this year in the Vatican, where he apologized.

Indigenous chiefs wearing eagle-feather battle headdresses welcomed the pope as a brother chief with chanting, drumming, dancing, and war songs.

“I’m here because the first step in my penitential tour among you is to seek pardon again, to say once more that I am profoundly sorry,”

The pope’s message to the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people was his first apology on Canadian territory as part of a mission to heal deep wounds exposed by the discovery of unmarked remains at residential schools last year.
The pope, 85, had promised such a travel to indigenous delegates that met him earlier this year in the Vatican, where he apologized.

Indigenous chiefs wearing eagle-feather battle headdresses welcomed the pope as a brother chief with chanting, drumming, dancing, and war songs.

“I’m here because the first step in my penitential tour among you is to seek pardon again, to say once more that I am profoundly sorry,” said Francis, who arrived and left in a wheelchair due to a fractured knee.