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October 28,2021

Anna Murray 

Pope Francis is considering a visit to Canada, according to the Vatican, in light of the Canadian bishops' pastoral process of reconciliation with indigenous peoples. Meanwhile, the Canadian bishops' conference welcomed the Vatican's announcement that Pope Francis has accepted their invitation to visit Canada on a healing and reconciliation pilgrimage. However, the Pope has expressed his willingness to visit Canada at an unspecified future date, according to a communique issued by the Holy See Press Office on October 27.

The assistance for reconciliation in repairing the relationship between indigenous people, non-indigenous people, and the government comes in the wake of the discovery of many unmarked burial sites in western Canada this spring and summer, the majority of which were thought to belong to former residential school students. More than 1,100 burial sites were discovered between May and July, including the unmarked graves of 215 indigenous children at a former Catholic-run residential school in British Columbia and 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. Some of the skeletons were thought to be three-year-old children.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Canadian body established to investigate school abuses, at least 4,100 children died as a result of disease or accident at the residential schools. The Catholic Church in Canada is being held accountable for its role in forced assimilation and genocide against children and families. According to a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Pope Francis has promised to apologize for abuses at church-run schools for indigenous children. RoseAnne Archibald, the current National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has called for someone to be charged criminally.