Pope Francis to apologize today for Catholic Church’s role in Indigenous abuse in Canada

Ottawa: Pope Francis arrived in Canada on Sunday. During his visit, he will apologise for the mistreatment of children in church-run residential schools.

According to the information, Pope Francis’s first apology to Indigenous community will be at an intimate setting, at the Ermineskin Cree Nation, the site of one of the 130 schools that were once spread across most of Canada.

Last year, 182 remains were recovered at a former residential school in Canada’s British Columbia province. These remains were of the children of native Canadians who were abused from the 19th century to the 1970s.

It is believed that 1.5 lakh children of the Indigenous community were studying in many such schools then, out of which six thousand children were killed. A Canadian indigenous community had demanded an apology from Pope Francis over the issue.