“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!”

Papal bulls written in the 15th century granted Catholic kings permission to colonize non-Christian lands and enslave Indigenous Peoples. Will Pope Francis formally rescind those decrees during his Canada pilgrimage?

“The enemy,” or the devil, “wants to paralyze us with grief and remorse, to convince us that nothing else can be done, that it is hopeless to try to find a way to start over,” the pope said.

Diego Fares, S.J., who died of cancer last week in Rome at age 66, was arguably the greatest interpreter of the thought and way of proceeding of Pope Francis.

In a British-built fort on the highest hill in Quebec City, Pope Francis spoke to Canadian government and cultural leaders about the never-ending challenge of multiculturalism.

A Reflection for the Seventeenth Thursday in Ordinary Time, by Colleen Dulle