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 Francis' efforts to deal with the worldwide sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and its decades-long cover-up. Francis had already apologized to delegations from Canada in the Vatican for the cases of abuse.
The ten-hour flight to Edmonton is 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.
The Pope's visit is scheduled to begin Monday in Maskwacis, about a hundred kilometers south of Edmonton. Francis wants to meet indigenous people there, including former students from 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 has visited Canada, whose population is about 44 percent Catholic: John Paul II was in 1984, 1987 and 2002 in the second largest country in the world.
