Pope Francis arrives in Canada, can apologize to the local people - know what is the matter?

Pope Francis embarked on a historic visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to locals for misbehavior by missionaries in residential schools. It is seen as an important step in the Catholic Church's efforts to reconcile indigenous communities and help them recover from the trauma of the period. He was received at the Edmonton, Alberta, airport by local community representatives, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mary Simon, a member of the local group Inuk and the country's first ethnic Governor General. On reaching here, Francis kissed the hand of the victim of a residential school.

Francis indicated that it was an atoning pilgrimage to atone for the role of Catholic missionaries in forcibly reuniting generations of native children with the current generation. A visit that has drawn mixed reactions from victims and their families across Canada, who have long been demanding an apology from the Pope for the atrocities committed against them.

Francis had no official schedule on Sunday, giving him time to rest before his meeting on Monday. He is expected to pray and apologize in a cemetery with the victims near a former residential school in Maskavasis here. When Francis was introduced to Elma Desjarlis, a victim at the Frog Lake First Nations residential school, he kissed Desjarlis' hand.

George Arcand Jr. congratulates the Pope

George Arcand Jr., Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, congratulated the Pope and said, "Right now, many of our people are skeptical and hurt." However, he expressed the hope that with the Pope's apology, we can begin the journey to overcome this shock .. and change the way things have been for us for years.

The Canadian government has acknowledged that physical and sexual abuse was widespread in government-funded Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s. About 150,000 Native community children were taken away from their families and forced to separate from the influence of their homes, native languages ​​and cultures, and to settle in the Christian community of Canada.