APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS to CANADA

Matteo Bruni:
Good morning. Good morning, Holy Father. Today, accompanying you are about eighty journalists, from more than ten countries, on what you have described as a “penitential pilgrimage”, a somewhat special journey. We are happy to listen to you these days, and even now, if you would like to address us. 
Pope Francis:
A blessed Sunday to you all, welcome! Thank you for this service and also for this company: I experience it as company... Thank you for your work. I would like to ...

Madam Governor General, Mr Prime Minister, Dear indigenous peoples of Maskwacis and of this land of Canada, Dear brothers and sisters!
I have been waiting to come here and be with you! Here, from this place associated with painful memories, I would like to begin what I consider a pilgrimage, a penitential pilgrimage. I have come to your native lands to tell you in person of my sorrow, to implore God’s forgiveness, healing and reconciliation, to express my closeness and to pray with you and for ...

Dear brothers and sisters, good evening!
I am happy to be here among you and to see once again the faces of the various indigenous representatives who came to visit me in Rome several months ago. That visit meant a lot to me, and now I have come to visit your home, as a friend and pilgrim in your land, in this church where you gather to praise God as brothers and sisters. In Rome, after I listened to your stories, I stated that “any truly effective process of healing requires concrete actions” ...

Today we celebrate the feast of the grandparents of Jesus. The Lord has gathered all of us together precisely on this occasion, so dear to you and to me. It was in the home of Joachim and Anne that the child Jesus came to know his older relatives and experienced the closeness, tender love and wisdom of his grandparents. Let us think about our own grandparents, and reflect on two important things.
First: we are children of a history that needs to be preserved. We are not isolated individuals, ...

Dear brothers and sisters, âba-wash-did! Tansi! Oki! [Good day!]
I am very pleased to be here, a pilgrim with you and among you. In these days, and today in particular, I have been struck by the sound of drums that accompanied me wherever I went. This beating of drums seems to echo the beating of so many hearts: hearts that, over the centuries, have beat near these very waters; hearts of the many pilgrims who walked together to reach this “lake of God”! Here we can truly feel the choral ...

Madam Governor General, Mr Prime Minister, Distinguished Civil and Religious Authorities, Dear Representatives of the Indigenous Peoples, Honourable Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ladies and Gentlemen!
I cordially greet you and I thank Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon and His Excellency Justin Trudeau for their kind words. I am happy to be able to address you, who have the responsibility of serving the people of this great country that, “from sea to sea”, displays an ...

The journey of the disciples to Emmaus, at the conclusion of Luke’s Gospel, is an icon of our own personal journey and that of the Church. On the path of life and faith, as we seek to achieve the dreams, plans, hopes and expectations deep in our hearts, we also come up against our own frailties and weaknesses; we experience setbacks and disappointments, and often we can remain imprisoned by a paralyzing sense of failure. Yet the Gospel tells us that at those very moments we are not alone, for ...

Dear brother Bishops, dear priests and deacons, consecrated men and women, seminarians and pastoral workers, good evening!
I thank Bishop Poisson for his words of welcome and I greet all of you, especially those who had to travel a long way to get here.  The distances in your country are truly large!  Thank you!  I am happy to be here with you!
It is significant that we find ourselves in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec, the Cathedral of this particular Church and ...

Dear brothers and sisters, good day!
I offer all of you a warm greeting and I thank you for coming here from various places. The vastness of this land makes us think of the lengthy path of healing and reconciliation that we are facing together. Indeed, the phrase that has accompanied us since March, when the indigenous delegates came to visit me in Rome, and inspires my visit here among you, is Walking Together/Marcher Ensemble.
I have come to Canada as a friend in order to meet you and to ...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good evening!
I greet the Governor General, and all of you, most heartily. I am happy to be here with you. I thank you for your words of welcome, and for your songs, dances and music, which I enjoyed greatly!
A short while ago, I listened to several of you, who were students of residential schools. I thank you for having had the courage to tell your stories and to share your great suffering, which I could not have imagined.  This only renewed in me the ...