Two mercifully flown decades ago, Mr. Dan Brown foisted on the world from some printing presses the Luddites sadly missed smashing, a purported novel called The Da Vinci Code.

At the conclusion of the Lenten journey of Indigenous representatives to the Vatican, Pope Francis gave the delegation a laetare moment, a time to rejoice. The Pope’s poignant apology for the harm “members of the Catholic Church” did to Indigenous children in residential schools and his promise to visit Canada this summer is a major step toward healing a broken relationship.

Never was a single sentence more longed for. In 40 years since survivors began to speak out, 16 years since the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement and seven years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada delivered its final report, nations and peoples have waited for a Pope to speak.

Neither truth nor reconciliation is served by claims that cannot be reconciled with what is known to be true.

Hard truths and deep prayer marked the Metis delegation’s hour with Pope Francis, said bishops who were in the room when nine Metis elders and residential school survivors spoke with the Pope.

After being greeted individually at the door of the papal library by Pope Francis, Inuit delegates proceeded to light the qulliq they had brought with them — a soapstone lantern that burns blubber, and a symbol of warmth and life in Inuit culture.

Led by two fiddlers playing the Red River Jig to the amazement of tourists, Metis delegates skirted past St. Peter’s Square on their way out from an hour-long meeting with Pope Francis before meeting the assembled press from Rome and Canada.

Rome is not just another city. It’s not even an Italian city. It belongs to the world and to God at one and the same time.

A week of spiritual diplomacy between Pope Francis and three Canadian Indigenous delegations will begin with hope, Assembly of First Nations Northwest Territories Regional Chief Gerald Antoine told an international press corps gathering on Zoom March 24.

As this issue of The Catholic Register reaches readers, our colleague Michael Swan will be packing his bags for Rome to cover Pope Francis’ meeting with Indigenous delegates from Canada. Given Swan’s reportorial industry, our upcoming issues will no doubt be heavily weighted with stories on who said what to whom and, most crucially, what it all meant. Against two years of pandemic, and now the horrors in Ukraine, the sessions that begin in Rome March 28 mark a historic moment for speeding up the snail’s pace process of reconciliation between Canada’s First Nations and its, shall we say, later arrivals.

1493 papal bull casts long shadow over Church-Indigenous relations

Without grassroots Catholics, Indigenous-Church relations won’t move forward

Toronto, Hamilton pledge to pay one-third of healing fund

Phyllis Googoo is ready to share her story with Pope Francis. She’s been wrestling with her memories of Shubenacadie Indian Residential School for more than 60 years.

Windsor’s historic Our Lady of the Assumption Church has been declared “saved” by the National Trust for Canada. But for the 294-year-old parish the road to salvation begins with reconciliation.