The 85-year-old pontiff is expected at 9:15 a.m. (3:15 p.m. GMT) at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, where he will deliver a homily in Spanish, his third speech since the start of his visit on Sunday.

During his first speech on Monday, he offered the long-awaited apology by the Native American populations of Canada. “I am grieved. I ask forgiveness,” the pope said at Maskwacis, an indigenous reservation in the west of the country.

Referring to the “wounds still open”, he recognized the responsibility of certain members of the Church in this system of residential schools for natives where “the children suffered physical and verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse”.

Tuesday for the continuation of his journey which he himself described as a “penitential pilgrimage”, François should greet the crowd aboard his Popemobile, despite his knee pain which forces him to use a cane or a wheelchair and to limit his movements.

According to the organizers, 63,000 people could attend this mass, under an important security device.

The spiritual leader of the 1.3 billion Catholics will then travel at 5 p.m. (2300 GMT) to Lac Sainte Anne, located about 80 km west of Edmonton, for a liturgical celebration at one of the main places of pilgrimage. from North America.

Every year, since the end of the 19th century, thousands of pilgrims, mainly from Canada and the United States, have come there to bathe and pray in these waters with healing properties, according to Native American rites.

July 26 marks the feast of Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus in the Catholic tradition, a major figure for many Canadian Aboriginal communities.

– “Historic day” –

On Monday, the pope issued a historic apology to Native American peoples asking “forgiveness for the wrong” done over decades in residential schools for Native Americans. A day described as “historic” by many Aboriginal leaders.

The words of the sovereign pontiff had been awaited for years by these peoples – First Nations, Métis and Inuit – who today represent 5% of the Canadian population.

“I will never forget, we must never forget,” insisted George Arcand Jr, Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations.

The painful chapter of “residential schools” for indigenous children caused at least 6,000 deaths between the end of the 19th century and the 1990s, creating a deep trauma over several generations.

In April, the pope apologized to the Vatican for the first time for the role played by the Church in the 130 boarding schools, where some 150,000 children were forcibly recruited, cut off from their families, their language and their culture. , and often victims of violence.

For many natives, it was the discovery of more than 1,300 anonymous graves in 2021 near these boarding schools that prompted the pope and the Church to agree to apologize for years.

The Pope’s trip will continue on Wednesday with a two-day stopover in Quebec, before a final stop on Friday in Iqaluit, in the Arctic archipelago to meet the Inuit populations.