Standing room can only be there till Wednesday afternoon plains of abraham in Quebec City.
There are expected to be in the thousands to see Pope Francis Who will arrive from Alberta for the second leg of his trip to Canada. It has been called a pilgrimage of his penance to speak out and apologize for the mistreatment of indigenous children run by the church. Residential school across the country.
“Edmonton represents the West, everything that happened in the West, and Quebec represents everything that happened in Central Canada and Eastern Canada,” explained the Reverend Christian Lepine, Archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of Montreal.
The Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, will make two stops in Quebec.
The first stop is in the provincial capital where he is expected to meet government officials including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Marie Simon in the citadel soon after arriving from Jean Lesage airport.
After that he will hold a public meeting. People gathered at the Plains of Abraham will be able to watch on the big screen.
He will then take a short tour of the plains at the Popemobile to greet the crowds who are expecting to see him there. Officials are warning people to close the road and advising them to use public transport.
All tickets have been distributed for a mass on Thursday in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, northeast of Quebec City. The collective, where he is expected to address former residential school students and their families, is the main event on his visit to Quebec.
“It was important for him to come here and explain the situation, the recognition of what happened, the (participation) of the Catholic Church,” Lepine said.
Pope Francis to Carry Mass at the Basilica of Quebec, One of the Indigenous Pilgrimage Site
He is scheduled to meet with a delegation of indigenous peoples from eastern Canada on Friday morning before the pontiff leaves for Iqaluit.
This is the fourth papal visit to Canada, but only the second time a pope has visited Quebec. The last papal visit to the province was in 1984.
For this visit, despite the expected large crowd, Indigenous leaders are advising the public that the visit is not a celebration, but a momentous occasion for residential school survivors.
“I’m sure they’ll have mixed feelings, as would the survivors in every residential school,” Arnold Bauer, head of Kahnawa: Kay Council, told Global News. “It brings back bad memories, reopens wounds.”
The Indian Residential School Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience.
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