(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis is set to deliver a long-sought apology to the Indigenous community in Canada over the Catholic church’s role in the generational abuse they suffered at Indigenous residential schools for nearly 150 years.

The schools were operated for decades by churches and the federal government of Canada to force assimilation.

Beginning in the 1800s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children from Canada and the United States were taken from their homes and families and placed into so-called residential schools aimed at ridding the children from ties to their Native communities, language and culture. Some of the schools were run by the Catholic church, where missionaries participated in the policies of forced assimilation and abuse.

Upon his arrival in Edmonton, the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta, Pope Francis was greeted on Sunday at the airport by First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.

“[Pope Francis] is visiting Canada to deliver the Roman Catholic Church’s apology to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Survivors and their descendants – for its role in operating residential schools, and for causing pain and suffering that continues to this very day,” Trudeau tweeted on Sunday.

Francis is set to meet with residential school survivors on Monday near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis in central Alberta, where he is expected to pray and deliver an apology.

“Dear brothers and sisters of [Canada], I come among you to meet the indigenous peoples. I hope, with God’s grace, that my penitential pilgrimage might contribute to the journey of reconciliation already undertaken. Please accompany me with [prayer],” Francis tweeted on Sunday.

Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, who had called for Pope Francis to deliver an in-person apology on behalf of the church, told ABC News’ Marcus Moore that Francis’ visit is “a validation of what has happened with the church and how they’ve hurt and abused our people.”

Ahead of his historic seven-day trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” and offered an apology to Native communities for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse.

According to a 2015 report released by Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous residential schools were an integral part of the Canadian government’s “conscious policy of cultural genocide,” where children were disconnected from their families, punished for speaking their Native languages and some faced physical and sexual abuse.

“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights,” according to the report.

Reflecting on the generational trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities, Alexis recalled a conversation with a survivor who told him, “The only thing I learned in the residential school was how to hate myself.”

The pope’s visit comes a year after nearly 1,000 sets of human remains were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in western Canada and at the former St. Eugene’s Mission School for Indigenous children in Aqam, a community in British Colombia. It is unclear how many total students died at residential boarding schools and what their causes of death were.

After the graves were discovered in Canada, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position — launched a probe in June 2021 into the U.S. government’s own role in funding Indian boarding schools as part of an effort to dispossess Indigenous people of their land to expand the United States.

The probe’s initial findings were outlined in a May report that found more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools run by the American government and churches.

Native Nations scholars estimate that almost 40,000 children have died at Indigenous boarding schools. According to the federal report, the Interior Department “expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”

Haaland, whose grandparents attended Indian boarding schools, now oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people and said that her work is a chance to bring some healing to the community.

“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” Haaland told ABC’s Nightline in an interview earlier this year.

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(LONDON) — Prince Harry has scored an early victory in his legal battle to ensure he and his family are protected by security when they are in the U.K.

A judge in London ruled Friday that the uke of Sussex’s case can go to the High Court in London, meaning Harry, sixth in line to the British throne, will face off with the Home Office, which oversees immigration and security, in court.

Harry is fighting back against a 2020 decision by the government that denied his family police protection while in Britain after he and his wife Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, stepped down from roles as senior working roles.

At the time, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures made a decision that security would be granted on a case-by-case basis.

Harry, who now lives in California with Meghan and their children Archie and Lilibet, has said he wants police protection for his family while on British soil and is willing to pay for the cost himself.

“He says that since birth, he’s been born into a world that requires a level security,” said Omid Scobie, ABC News royal contributor and the author of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family. “Not just to keep himself safe, but also his extended family, the people he marries, the children he has.”

Harry has only returned to the U.K. a handful of times since moving in 2020.

He and Meghan made their first joint return to the U.K. in April, where they met briefly with Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on their way to the Invictus Games.

The couple then returned with their children in June to celebrate the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, their first known trip to the U.K. as a family of four.

Archie, 3, was born in the U.K. but had not traveled back publicly with his parents since they moved to California in 2020.
 
Lilibet was born last June in Santa Barbara, California, making her the first senior royal baby born in the U.S., and the first great-grandchild of the queen to be born outside of the U.K.

Since moving to California, the Sussexes have relied on a privately-funded security team, but Harry’s legal team has said they hope to expand that soon.

The family’s current security situation is similar to that of Harry’s late mother Princess Diana who had to rely on private security protection after her divorce from Harry’s father Prince Charles in 1996.

One year later, in 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris after the car she was riding in was pursued by paparazzi.

“When Diana died, she didn’t have police protection. She had a private security team at that point,” said Victoria Murphy, ABC News royal contributor. “And I think it’s very clear that Prince Harry feels that the police protection is superior and that that is what he wants for his family.”

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