B.C.’s Catholic community remembers Pope Francis as open-minded ‘man of presence’ [Video]

Catholics in British Columbia and around the world are mourning the death of Pope Francis.

The Vatican announced that the pontiff died early Easter Monday at the age of 88, more than two months after he was hospitalized for a respiratory infection.

Rev. Richard Smith, archbishop-designate of Vancouver, remembered Francis’s 2022 visit to Canada when he apologized for the “deplorable” conduct of some members of the Catholic Church in Canada’s residential school system. 

“Pope Francis wore his heart on his sleeve, even to the public, even before mass audiences,” Smith said. “But to see him open his heart, open his mind to the Indigenous was really — I think —  an example to us all.”

The apology drew mixed reaction in B.C. at the time with some saying they wanted him to denounce the Doctrine of Discovery, which gave the Catholic Church’s blessing to proselytization and the acquisition of Indigenous lands in North America. The Catholic Church repudiated the doctrine…