The delegation to Rome will include “Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors, and youth,” the Feb. 1 statement said.

Pope Francis’ meeting with Indigenous peoples has been in planning since June 2021, following the reported discovery of unmarked gravesites at the site of former residential schools in Canada.

Canada’s residential school system operated from the 1870s until 1996. First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children were separated from their families and sent to the schools, which were established by the federal government and run by Catholics and members of Protestant ecclesial communities, to force assimilation and strip them of familial and cultural ties.

The Catholic Church, or Catholic religious orders, ran more than two-thirds of the schools.

According to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an estimated 4,100 to 6,000 students died while they were enrolled at the schools. The majority of the students died of diseases, including influenza and tuberculosis.

When members of the delegation arrive in the Vatican, they intend to ask Pope Francis for an apology for the Church’s role in the residential school system, as well as the release of all records that relate to the residential schools, and the return of any Indigenous items from Canada that the Vatican may possess in its archives.