The Pope's 'penitential pilgrimage' will focus on reparation, observers say

The last time the pope visited an Indigenous community in Canada was in 1987 when John Paul II stopped in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., on Dehcho First Nations land.

There, he praised the role of Catholic missionaries, saying the "revival of your [Indigenous] culture and traditions that you know today is largely due to the initiatives and continuous efforts of missionaries."

"[Your ancestors]," he said, "knew by instinct that the gospel, far from destroying their authentic values and customs, had the power to purify and uplift the cultural heritage which they had received."

Thirty-five years later, Pope Francis is expected to deliver a markedly different message on his first visit to Canada and Indigenous communities, a trip that the Roman Catholic leader recently referred to as "a penitential pilgrimage."

A trip of spiritual penance.

"Historically, papal trips were all about the enhancement of the authority of the pope … created to make everyone understand how great the pope is, the Catholic Church is," said Massimo Faggioli, Vatican expert and professor of theology at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. "This trip … is one of spiritual humiliation, in a good sense."

Faggioli says such a trip was inconceivable even a year ago, when the Canadian bishops and the Pope were still ignoring calls to apologize for the role of the Catholic Church in the abuse of Indigenous children in residential schools.

But he says Francis, 85, who faces mobility challenges related to his knees and sciatica and has cancelled other trips this summer, understood the grave risk of foregoing this one — as did those advising him.

"Canada and the residential schools represent the most clear example of how the abuse crisis has morphed into something different," Faggioli said. "It's no longer sexual abuse by clergy, but it is cultural abuse, abuse of authority, cultural genocide. It's one big monster of a phenomena."

And addressing it, he says, is crucial to the Catholic Church's survival as a moral authority in Canada.

Still, the six-day trip to Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit is fraught with political risk for the Vatican and Canadian bishops.

WATCH | What the visit means to Indigenous leaders:

Vatican observers say the institution's upper members worry about how to walk the fine line between making more honest acknowledgements for their systemic responsibility in the abuse while keeping the abuse in historic context.

And, observers say, the Indigenous groups in Canada have been less easily appeased than other groups that Catholic leaders have issued apologies to in the past.