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Postponed, not cancelled, but still heartbreaking. The long planned encounter between Indigenous Canadians and Pope Francis in Rome is being put off while everybody learns more about the Omicron variant of COVID-19, according to a joint release from three Indigenous organizations involved in the trip and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In one hour gathered in a room with Pope Francis, 13 Assembly of First Nations delegates plan to lay down heavy burdens and raise up the hope of nations.

As Indigenous elders, youth, knowledge keepers and residential school survivors prepare for their historic meetings with Pope Francis Dec. 17-20, Regina Archbishop Don Bolen is inviting Canadians to journey with them spiritually.

One month ago, Pope Francis and the Vatican announced an upcoming papal visit to Canada to foster reconciliation with the country������Ƶapp Indigenous populations in the aftermath of children being found in unmarked, residential school graves.

Indigenous delegates to Rome will have at least three hours of direct, face-to-face conversation with Pope Francis spread over four days, topped off with their presence at an hour-long general audience.

While the upcoming delegation of Indigenous leaders and Canadian bishops travelling to Rome next month to meet the Pope in Rome is an “important, outward and public sign of a commitment to healing and reconciliation,” Catholics must look inward to answer the call to true healing, said Cardinal Thomas Collins.

Pope Francis will be fully involved in three days of meetings with about 30 Indigenous delegates travelling to Rome to next month in what Canada������Ƶapp bishops describe as a “significant milestone” in Church reconciliation efforts.

As coincidence would have it, on the same day Pope Francis expressed his willingness to visit Canada to foster reconciliation with Indigenous people, St. Mary������Ƶapp University and St. Joseph������Ƶapp College in Alberta jointly hosted an online speaker������Ƶapp panel called “CatholicismRepentance.”

There has never been a papal visit to anywhere that has been anything like what will unfold when Pope Francis comes to Canada — a papal journey of sorrow, mourning and repentance holding forth a thin candle of hope up against the flood of our own Catholic sins.

Deacon Harry Lafond is well aware of the serious, sorrowful situation which has prompted Pope Francis to announce a visit to Canada. But he does not believe the papal visit should drown in tears.

When Chief Phil Fontaine arrives in Rome to meet with Vatican officials and Pope Francis he will be laser focused on having the Holy Father apologize on Canadian soil, in an Indigenous context, for the damage done to children and communities by Catholic participation in the residential school system.

Regional efforts to raise $30 million on behalf of Indigenous healing and reconciliation projects appear to be on hold while the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops hammers out a national framework for regional and diocesan campaigns.

The first responsibility of a journalist is to get the facts right. In that regard, I failed in my column “Lack of transparency shatters credibility” in the Oct. 17 Catholic Register. In that article, I took Canada������Ƶapp bishops to task for failing to meet their responsibility to live up to agreements to provide healing and reconciliation to the survivors of residential schools.

Pope Francis has accepted an invitation by Canada������Ƶapp bishops to visit Canada “on a pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation.”

On the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, 6,509 orange ribbons spanned the banisters in the foyer at All Saints Catholic Secondary School in Whitby, Ont., each representing a child from an unmarked grave at a former residential school.