In Canada, Indigenous protesters confronted Pope Francis Thursday as he prepared to celebrate Mass inside Canada’s national shrine in Quebec City. 

Ottawa, July 30 (RHC)-- In Canada, Indigenous protesters confronted Pope Francis Thursday as he prepared to celebrate Mass inside Canada’s national shrine in Quebec City. 

The protest came as the pontiff was concluding his tour of Canada to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s brutal “Indian residential school” system, which saw an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children taken from their families and placed in distant boarding schools, where they often suffered sexual and physical abuse.  More than 4,000 children died in the custody of the schools. 

Earlier, two Anishinaabe protesters unfurled a large banner reading “Rescind the Doctrine” just as Pope Francis was starting Mass.  Their sign was a reference to the 15th century “Doctrine of Discovery” used by the Catholic Church to justify the European colonization of Indigenous lands.