The timing of the visit comes just days after the pontiff postponed a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, scheduled for early next month, due to severe pain in his right knee.
At the time, the Vatican also released the official itinerary for the visit to Africa, but canceled the trip two weeks later due to health issues that required the pope to use a wheelchair to get around.
According to the scenario unveiled on Thursday, Francis arrives in Edmonton, in the Canadian province of Alberta, on July 24.
The next day, he traveled to the community of Maskwacis, where he met with Aboriginal representatives of the First Nations (from the English “First Nations”, as the native tribes of Canada are called), and of the Métis and Inuit peoples.
Already on July 26, the chief celebrates a mass in an Edmonton stadium and takes part in a pilgrimage to Lac Sainte-Anne for Saint-Anne. On the 27th, the pontiff left for Quebec, capital of the French-speaking region of Canada, and met the political, civil, indigenous and diplomatic authorities.
On July 28, François celebrates a mass at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and then participates in vespers with bishops, priests and other Catholic representatives.
On July 29, the pope holds a private meeting with members of the Society of Jesus and meets with a delegation of natives present in Quebec.
In the afternoon, Bergoglio travels to Iqaluit, the capital and only municipality of the territory of Nunavut, the largest region of the country in geographical extension and also the northernmost, with a good part of its area located in the polar circle. Arctic.
The population of Iqaluit is mainly made up of Inuit (56%), Eskimos who live in the Arctic regions. In town, François meets privately with former students of former Catholic boarding schools and then participates in a meeting with young and old.
This will be the last appointment for the pope, who leaves for Rome at 6:45 p.m. (local time).
Abuse – The Apostolic Journey follows the discovery of mass graves with hundreds of unidentified bodies in former residential schools run by the Catholic Church in Canada.
The first graves were discovered in May 2021, on the grounds of a former school in Kamloops, in the western province of British Columbia, exposing the unhealed wounds of the forced Christianization of Indigenous Canadians.
These boarding schools were intended to “educate” the natives according to Catholic precepts, but for this they forcibly removed children from their communities and forced them to abandon their customs and language. In addition, students were frequently victims of sexual and physical abuse by teachers.
The Catholic Church in Canada asked for forgiveness in September 2021, after attacks on parishes to protest crimes committed in residential schools, but Francis did not apologize until April this year, after meetings with peoples natives in the Vatican. (ANSA).
