The Pope's plane landed at Edmonton Airport shortly after 11:00 a.m. (local time, 7:00 p.m. CEST). Francis was received by Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II's Representative to Canada, Mary Simon, and was greeted at a welcome ceremony by Aboriginal officials. The Pope accepted gifts from leaders of various indigenous groups and spoke briefly with each of them.
During his "Pilgrimage of Penance," the pope wants to ask forgiveness for the abuse and violence that was once directed against children of indigenous people in Catholic boarding schools. In a message on the Twitter short message service, Francis wrote before his departure that he hoped that his visit would contribute to the "journey of reconciliation" that had already begun.
In Canada, since 1874, some 150,000 children of Aboriginal and mixed-race couples had been separated from their families and culture and placed in church homes in order to force them to assimilate into the white majority society. Many of them were mistreated or sexually abused there, and thousands died of disease or malnutrition.
Since last year, more than 1,300 anonymous graves have been found near several of these church facilities. A national truth and reconciliation commission spoke of "cultural genocide" in this context.
The Pope's trip to Canada is seen as an important part of the Pope's efforts to deal with the worldwide sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and its decades-long cover-up. Francis had already received delegations from Canada in the Vatican in April and apologized for the cases of abuse.
The ten-hour flight to Edmonton was the Pope's longest flight since 2019. The 85-year-old has been suffering from knee pain for some time. He was hoisted onto the plane in a wheelchair on Sunday.
On Monday, the Pope wants to meet indigenous people in Maskwacis, about a hundred kilometers south of Edmonton, among them former students of Catholic boarding schools. On Tuesday, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics will celebrate mass in a 60,000-seat stadium in Edmonton and visit Lac Sainte Anne, a lake popular with pilgrims.
After a visit to Quebec, the Pope plans to end his trip in Iqaluit, home to Canada's largest Inuit population. There, too, he will meet with former home students before returning to Rome.
The Pope will be accompanied by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, who is described as the number two in the Vatican. Before Francis, only one other pope had traveled to Canada, whose population is about 44 percent Catholic: John Paul II visited the second largest country in the world in 1984, 1987 and 2002.
