After concluding his visit to Canada, Pope Francis returned to Rome on Friday, 29 July, where he will arrive at approximately 8:50 a.m. Saturday (Italian time).
The Holy Father arrived in Canada on Sunday the 24th on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage”, with the aim of asking forgiveness for the bad behavior that “so many Christians” had against indigenous people in residential schools.
In this sense, the visit of Pope Francis was highly anticipated by the native communities, whose leaders traveled to the Vatican in March of this year.
“I apologize, in particular, for the way in which many members of the Church and religious communities cooperated, also through indifference, in those projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation of the governments of the time, which ended in the residential school system,” the Pontiff said on July 25, in his meeting with First Nations, Métis and Inuit.
Pope Francis, who also had meetings with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, has called on the country to begin a path of healing and reconciliation.
The Holy Father reiterated his invitation to “walk together a path of healing and reconciliation that, with the help of the Creator, help us shed light on what happened and overcome that dark past,” on Friday 29 July.