As Pope Francis concluded his intensive five-day pilgrimage of reconciliation on Canadian soil, he spoke directly to Inuit youth in Iqaluit and offered them three pieces of advice: keep walking upwards, come to the light each day and be part of a team.

The full text of the homily Pope Francis delivered at the Mass celebrated at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, July 26, 2022.

The words “I am sorry” are powerful. For Tammy Ward of the Samson First Nation, those words from Pope Francis brought tears as she listened on the Maskawacis powwow grounds. 

When busloads of residential school survivors, elders, knowledge keepers and youth descend on Edmonton and Quebec City to be present as Pope Francis walks on his “penitential pilgrimage,” Cynthia Bunn will be among them. But she didn’t want to be.

Pope Francis' July trip to Canada was born out of his meetings with the nations' Indigenous people and was planned around encounters with them, and if the pope's words "have value elsewhere," like throughout the Americas, all the better, said the director of the Vatican press office.

The moment of humility and contrition Pope Francis ushers in with his visit to Canada may seem an unpropitious time to remind ourselves how great we art.

Hopes are high Pope Francis’ visit to Canada will bring about the reconciliation that leads to healing and restoration for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike. The Pontiff’s visit follows on the heels of his meeting with an Indigenous delegation in the Vatican at the end of March.

Teeing up the historic Papal Visit to Canada from July 24-29, Salt and Light Media Foundation unveiled a 59-minute documentary entitled Walking Together on July 17, chronicling the landmark meetings hosted at the Vatican between Pope Francis and representatives of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples in March and April.

Ahead of Pope Francis’ journey to Canada, the Oblate Fathers have retired their longstanding practice of keeping personnel files secret until 50 years after the death of an Oblate Father or Brother.

Nine months after Canada’s Catholic bishops committed to it, the Indigenous Reconciliation Fund is up and running.

Asking for prayers ahead of his visit to Canada July 24-29, Pope Francis described the trip as a "penitential pilgrimage" as part of a commitment to healing and reconciliation with the country's Indigenous people.

When Pope Francis travels to Canada to apologize to Indigenous communities for the way the Catholic Church joined efforts to uproot them from their traditional culture and spirituality, their traditions will be on full display.

A papal apology on Indigenous land in Canada is not irrelevant south of the border.

If Pope Francis is going to broaden or deepen the apology he offered April 1 in Rome, then it’s going to happen at Maskwacis, 70 kilometres south of Edmonton, site of one of the largest Indian residential schools in Canada.

A First Nations group of residential school survivors has publicly put forward specific wording for a papal apology widely expected in Canada in July.