EDMONTON, Alberta, July 24 (Reuters) – Pope Francis arrived in Canada on Sunday for a week-long trip where he will apologize for past abuses suffered by indigenous children in schools entrusted by the government the Catholic Church.
The sovereign pontiff, aged 85, arrived in the afternoon in Edmonton, the capital of the province of Alberta, in the west of the country.
At least five meetings are planned with representatives of the indigenous peoples, to whom, after having already publicly asked for forgiveness in April, he had promised to come and apologize on their territory.
This trip will also make it possible to judge the state of health of the pope. Franois had to cancel a tour in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan at the beginning of July because of a knee problem that forced him to use a wheelchair and then a cane.
In a Reuters interview this month, the Pope gave details publicly of his knee injury for the first time, saying he suffered a “little fracture” and inflammation of a ligament after tripping.
(Report Philip Pullella, with Steve Scherrer Ottawa; French version Bertrand Boucey, told by Jean Terzian)