Pope Francis is in Canada for a six-day visit to renew his plea for forgiveness for the church’s role in the tragedy of indigenous boarding schools. The Papal plane landed at Edmonton Airport in Alberta, western Canada, around noon today. “This is the path of repentance,” the 85-year-old pontiff told reporters accompanying him.

This visit will focus primarily on Aboriginal people, who make up five percent of Canada’s population. Between the late nineteenth century and the 1990s, about 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly enrolled in more than 130 public boarding schools, most of which were run by the Catholic Church. They were separated from their families, language and culture and were often victims of violence, sometimes sexual.

Some 6,000 children died there in what a national commission of inquiry called a “cultural genocide” in a country where the discovery of more than 1,300 unidentified graves in 2021 shocked authorities and prompted authorities to declare a “day of reconciliation.”

Indigenous peoples are looking forward to this visit, hoping that the Pope will renew the historic apology he made in April at the Vatican.

The trip will be the longest since 2019 for the Pope, who suffers from knee pain that requires him to use a cane or a wheelchair. Pope Francis is accompanied by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a representative of Vatican diplomacy.