EDMONTON, Alberta -- Pope Francis celebrated his first big Mass in Canada on Tuesday after his historic apology for the Catholic Church's role in severing generations of Indigenous family ties by participating in Canada's "catastrophic" residential school system.
Some 50,000 people filled Commonwealth Stadium and a smaller nearby venue for the Mass. They cheered as Francis arrived in a popemobile and looped around the track, stopping occasionally to kiss babies as Indigenous hand drums thumped.
But emotions were still raw a day after Francis visited a former residential school to apologize for the "evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples."
Phil Fontaine, former chief of the Assembly of First Nations and a residential school survivor, urged the crowd to forgive in remarks delivered before Francis arrived.
"We will never achieve healing and reconciliation without forgiveness," he said. "We will never forget, but we must forgive."
Negative reviews also came in.
Murray Sinclair, the First Nations chairman of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, welcomed the apology but said Tuesday it didn't go far enough in acknowledging the papacy's own role in justifying European colonial expansion and the hierarchy's endorsement of Canada's assimilation policy.
Francis didn't dwell on the apology or the church's fraught history during the Mass, which fell on the Feast of St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus and a figure of veneration for Canadian Catholics and Indigenous Catholics in particular. Due to knee problems, the 85-year-old pontiff celebrated the Mass from a seated position.
In his homily, Francis urged young people to appreciate the wisdom and experience of their grandparents as fundamental to their very being, and treasure those lessons to build a better future.
"Thanks to our grandparents, we received a caress from the history that preceded us: We learned that goodness, tender love and wisdom are the solid roots of humanity," he said. "We are children because we are grandchildren."
Francis' message had resonance in Canada, given that families were torn apart by the church-enforced government policy.
More than 150,000 Native children in Canada were taken from their homes and forced to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.
Tuesday's Mass was notable for the lack of Indigenous representation in the service.
Aside from some music before Francis arrived, there were no Indigenous hymns or prayers, despite the significant Indigenous presence among the faithful. Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith thanked the pope for coming in four Native languages as well as French, but the service was otherwise celebrated in English.
For Lorna Lindley, a survivor of the Kamloops residential school in British Columbia, where the first presumed unmarked graves were discovered last year, the day was difficult. She said she was there to honor her late parents, who were taken to a residential school at age 5 in a cattle truck.
"For myself it's really heavy," Lindley said. "It's hard. No matter how many times you apologize, it doesn't take away the hurt and pain."
Indigenous community leaders, for their part, urged Francis to make good on his pledge to continue the path of reconciliation with concrete action: turning over church records on Indigenous children who died at schools, funding therapeutic programs for survivors and facilitating investigations of those responsible for the abuses.
Francis' ode to grandparents was to continue later Tuesday at one of North America's most popular pilgrimage sites, Lac Ste. Anne -- considered a place of healing where the faithful come and wade into the lake. Francis was to preside over a liturgy of the word service there and bless its waters.
Alberta health authorities recently issued a blue-green algae bloom advisory for the lake warning visitors to avoid contact with the blooms and refrain from wading where they are visible.
Francis' has said his six-day visit, which also will take him to Quebec City and northern Iqaluit, Nunavut, is a "penitential pilgrimage" to atone for the Catholic Church's role in the residential school system. It fulfills a key recommendation of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which sought a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil.
Gallery: Day two of Pope's visit to Canada
