Canada

Pope Francis says he must slow down or consider retiring following Canada trip

Pope says genocide took place at church schools in Canada for indigenous children

The 85-year-old pontiff has said he has not thought about resigning, but said “the door is open” and there was nothing wrong with a pope stepping down.

Sat Jul 30 2022 - 12:11

Pope Francis has acknowledged he can no longer travel like he used to because of his strained knee ligaments, saying his week-long Canadian pilgrimage was “a bit of a test” that showed he needs to slow down and one day possibly retire.

Speaking to reporters while travelling home, the 85-year-old stressed that he had not thought about resigning but said “the door is open” and there was nothing wrong with a pope stepping down.

“It’s not strange. It’s not a catastrophe. You can change the pope,” he said.

Francis said that while he had not considered resigning until now, he realises he has to at least slow down.

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“I think at my age and with these limitations, I have to save [my energy] to be able to serve the church, or on the contrary, think about the possibility of stepping aside,” he said.

Francis was peppered with questions about the future of his pontificate following the first trip in which he used a wheelchair, walker and cane to get around, sharply limiting his programme and ability to mingle with crowds.

[ Pope Francis’s apology for abuse in Canada has ring of familiarity in Ireland ]

Meanwhile, the pope said on Saturday that what happened at residential schools that the Roman Catholic and other Christian churches ran to forcefully assimilate Canada’s indigenous children was genocide.

The pope made the comment while flying back to Rome after a week-long trip to Canada, where he delivered a historic apology for the church’s role in the policy.

He was asked by an indigenous Canadian reporter on the plane why he did not use the word genocide during the trip, and if he would accept that members of the church participated in genocide.

“It’s true that I did not use the word because I didn’t think of it. But I described genocide. I apologised, I asked forgiveness for this activity, which was genocide,” Francis said.

“I condemned this, taking children away and trying to change their culture, their minds, change their traditions, a race, an entire culture,” the pope added.

Between 1881 and 1996 more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and brought to residential schools. Many children were starved, beaten and sexually abused in a system that Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide”.

The schools were run for the governments by religious groups, most of them Catholic priests and nuns.

“Yes, genocide is a technical word but I did not use it because I did not think of it, but I described... yes, it is a genocide, yes, yes, clearly. You can say that I said it was a genocide,” he said.

Last Monday, Francis visited the town of Maskwacis, site of two former residential schools, where he apologised and called forced assimilation “evil” and a “disastrous error”.

He also apologised for Christian support of the “colonising mentality” of the times. — Agencies

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