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Canada: end of a penitential journey – Vatican News

Pope Francis’ 37th trip abroad is over: The Pope is returning to Rome from Canada. On Friday evening (local time) the plane with Francis on board took off from Iqaluit in the north polar region; the Pope is expected back in Rome on Saturday morning.

The six-day journey through Canada was planned by the Vatican as a “penitential pilgrimage”. With the visit, Francis wanted to ask the indigenous people for forgiveness for multiple discrimination, especially in so-called resident schools. In these boarding schools, mostly run by the Catholic Church, around 150,000 indigenous children were systematically alienated from their culture and often abused for decades up until the 1990s.

On several occasions during his journey, which took him from the provinces of Alberta and Québec almost to the North Pole, the Pope asked indigenous people for forgiveness on behalf of the Catholic Church. He was officially adopted at Iqaluit International Airport on Friday evening (local time), including with an Inuit dance; it was one of the longest journeys of this pontificate. No pope has ever advanced as far north as this pope from the southern hemisphere. At around 2:00 a.m. CET he was on the Ita Airways plane.

(vatican news – sk)

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