Pope Francis boards an airplane ahead of his visit to Canada at Rome Fiumicino airport in Fiumicino, Italy, July 24, 2022. REUTERS
ROME 鈥� Pope Francis left Rome on Sunday for a trip to Canada to apologize for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in residential schools where many indigenous children were abused.
The 85-year-old pope, his entourage and journalists flew out of Rome鈥檚 Fiumicino airport on an ITA Italian airline plane en route to Edmonton, capital of Alberta.
The week-long trip will include at least five encounters with native people as Francis makes good on a promise to apologize on their home territory for the Church鈥檚 role in the state-sanctioned schools, which sought to erase indigenous cultures.
It also will be a test of pope鈥檚 health. He had to cancel a trip to Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in early July because of a knee problem that forced him to use first a wheel chair and later a cane.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters this month, Francis gave details of his ailment for the first time in public, saying he had suffered 鈥渁 small fracture鈥� in the knee when he took a misstep while a ligament was inflamed.
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