Pope Francis has asked the indigenous people of Canada for forgiveness for the injustice suffered in the so-called residential schools.

"I join the Canadian bishops' request for an apology," Francis said on Friday at a public audience for the 150-strong delegation of Canadian indigenous people and the six bishops who had traveled from Canada.

He feels "great pain and shame" at the abuse of violent re-education of indigenous children in facilities run by the Catholic Church.

The Pope also announced his long-planned visit to Canada for the end of July.

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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From the mid-19th century until the last facility closed in 1997, more than 150,000 indigenous children between the ages of four and 16 were re-educated in almost 140 residential schools in Canada.

The aim was to cut the children off from their cultural and linguistic roots in order to introduce them to "Christian civilisation".

Lessons were held in English and French, and the use of the mother tongue was strictly forbidden.

Most of the residential schools were run by Christian religious communities on behalf of the Canadian government.

The Catholic Church alone operated 60 percent of these institutions.

Every fourth student died

From Monday to Friday, the Pope took the time to listen to reports from survivors of sexual abuse at a total of four meetings with representatives of various indigenous groups.

Since May 2021, the discovery of mass graves on the grounds of residential schools has brought the conditions in the facilities back into the public consciousness of Canadians and the universal church.

Apparently, more than 40 percent of the forced detention children were victims of sexual abuse.

So far, at least 3,200 children have died in the residential schools.

Experts assume more than 6000 deaths.

The often malnourished children died of tuberculosis or during outbreaks of influenza and measles.

The conditions at residential schools in the west of the country were particularly bad, where an average of one in four students died.