VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis said on Sunday a visit to Canada, where he will meet Indigenous survivors of abuse committed at residential schools run by the Catholic Church, was “a penitential pilgrimage”.

“Next Sunday, God willing, I will leave for Canada,” he said at the end of the Angelus prayer, in an apparent reference to a knee problem which caused him to postpone a trip last month to Africa. The pontiff is expected to use his July 24-30 visit to Edmonton, Quebec and Iqaluit to repeat an apology he delivered to Canadian delegations who visited the Vatican in April.

He had “expressed my sorrow and solidarity for the harm they have suffered”, Pope Francis told the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s square on Sunday.

“And now I am about to make a penitential pilgrimage, which I hope, with God’s grace, will contribute to the journey of healing and reconciliation already undertaken,” he said.

The trip to Canada is an important step in the 85-year old’s efforts to address the global scandal of clerical sexual abuse of children and decades of cover-up.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2022