Local bishop excited for Pope pilgrimage to Canada

Details still need to be confirmed, but Bishop Mark Hagemoen is very excited at the prospect of the Pope visiting Canadian soil.

“The other time the Pope was here was just after I went to the Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith and that was when he went in ’87 … I was not even a priest then,” Hagemoen remembered.

The possible visit is described as a pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation. Hagemoen said planning behind the invitation to the Pope has been going on for about three years between the church and Indigenous leaders.

“I was delighted with my brother bishops here in Saskatchewan and across Canada to hear the news that Pope Francis has accepted the invitation of the Catholic Bishops to come to Canada,” he said.

While he doesn’t know exactly what will come out of the visit, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon said he hopes to hear an “acknowledgement and expression of sorrow” from the Pope, which he said would mean “an awful lot to a lot of different people.”

“Many of the Indigenous leaders, we all know, have been generously sharing their experiences and stories of challenge and suffering that continue to this day so a pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation led by Pope Francis is very important,” Hagemoen said.

Acknowledging that he himself still has much to learn as a clergy member when it comes to reconciliation, Hagemoen said in discussing the possible visit with local residential school survivors, it would be a “meaningful and powerful” opportunity for the religious leader to “come to our land and express his words of sorrow for the residential schools and to share with us in our journey to healing.”

Hagemoen said he thinks the lack of details so far are purposeful, and that more will be announced after the Pope meets with the delegated First Nations, Inuit and Metis leaders slated to visit the Vatican in December.

“I’m very excited,” Hageomoe said on a personal note. “I’ve met Pope Francis three times myself and each time I’ve met him, I’ve met an extraordinarily pastoral man who very much wants to hear and listen to people and their experience, especially if the experience is one of pain and difficulty and trying to find the way forward. That means an awful lot to him.”

Pope Francis was the pope that called Hagemoen to be a bishop.

“I’m excited for any Pope to come to Canada, but at this time in history, to have Pope Francis come to Canada I’d be very excited,” he said.