Catholicism

Pope Francis, 85, acknowledged he can no longer travel like he used to because of his strained knee ligaments, saying his weeklong Canadian pilgrimage was "a bit of a test."

Pope Francis traveled to the edge of the Arctic to deliver an apology to the Inuit people for the "evil" of Canada's residential schools, wrapping up his week-long "penitential pilgrimage" to Canada.

The church is acknowledging its role in the forceful removal, assimilation, abuse and in many cases deaths of more than 150,000 children forcibly taken from their families and placed in so-called residential schools.

The pope apologized to Indigenous peoples for abuses in church-run residential schools. Canada's response suggests that reconciliation over the fraught history is still a work in progress.

Francis issued the apology years after a Canadian-government-funded report said children had been physically and sexually abused at the mostly Catholic-run schools in the country.

Pope Francis issued a long-awaited apology and took responsibility for the church's cooperation in generations of abuse and cultural suppression at Catholic residential schools across Canada.

Pope Francis began a visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses at residential schools, part of the the Catholic Church's efforts to reconcile with Native communities.

Italian and Catholic media have been rife with unsourced speculation that the 85-year-old Francis might be planning to follow in his predecessor's footsteps and step down as pope.

Debates about abortion often center around the issue of when life begins. Some religions say it's at conception. Another says it's with the baby's first breath.

"In a total of four cases, we reached a consensus there was a failure to act," said attorney Martin Pusch of the law firm that was hired by the church to investigate decades of abuse.