“I would like once more to ask forgiveness of all the victims,” the pope said in a homily at Quebec’s Notre Dame Cathedral. “The pain and the shame we feel must become an occasion for conversion: Never again!”

The image of Pope Francis, all alone on the side of the lake, imploring God for healing, will surely remain as an iconic image of this penitential pilgrimage.

Pope Francis condemned Canada’s residential school system as “a deplorable evil” and asked forgiveness of the Indigenous Peoples for Christians participation in it.

Pope Francis landed in Edmonton and met briefly at the airport with Indigenous leaders, Canada's governor general and prime minister.

Four years after the Holy See and China reached a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops, Archbishop Paul Gallagher says the results are “not terribly impressive.”

“We’re getting to a very dangerous situation worldwide,” the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states said, “and it wouldn’t take much to make things even worse” and to arrive at “a world in conflict.”