Pope Francis

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.

The head of the church in San Francisco has said the House Speaker can't receive the sacrament there because of her abortion rights support, but Pope Francis has avoided politicizing the Eucharist.

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.

"It is time to say enough to the indiscriminate trafficking of arms," Pope Francis said on Wednesday, as he sent condolences to families in Uvalde, Texas.