Pope’s health an ‘extreme concern,’ trip to Canada unchanged: Miller

OTTAWA — Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday Pope Francis’s upcoming trip to Canada remains unchanged at the moment, but the pontiff’s health is an “extreme concern.”

Miller’s comments come after the Vatican announced last week the 85year-old Pope would reschedule an upcoming trip to Africa to avoid interrupting therapy he is undergoing for his knee.

His trip to Congo and South Sudan had been scheduled to take place from July 2 to 7, just weeks before he is set to travel to Canada to deliver a long-awaited apology to Indigenous people for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools.

“We’re all systems go in Canada in terms of hosting, effectively, what is a head of state,” Miller said before entering a meeting of the Liberal caucus.

“But obviously his precarious health is of extreme concern.”

An estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend these church-run, government-funded institutions, where physical and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, were rampant.

The final report released in December 2015 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which collected testimony from thousands of survivors, called for a papal apology to take place on Canadian soil for the role played by the Catholic Church and its clergy for running these schools.

That request went unheard until earlier this year, when Pope Francis apologized to First Nations, Inuit and Metis delegates who travelled to the Vatican to speak to him about the matter.

Survivors still hope to see him deliver an apology in Canada.