The pope was a friend, and they talked sports: TRC commissioner remembers Francis

Pope Francis adjusts a traditional headdress he was given after his apology to Indigenous people as Chief Wilton Littlechild looks on during a ceremony in Maskwacis, Alta., as part of his papal visit across Canada on July 25, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Wilton Littlechild remembers closing his eyes before Pope Francis led his first mass at the Vatican more than a decade ago.

He wanted to clearly hear every word.

As the pope’s voice grew louder, Littlechild, a residential school survivor and former commissioner for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, says he became still and thought: “I was listening to one of our elders.”

Littlechild says it was the first time he saw the head of the Catholic Church as an ally of Indigenous people.

“(Francis) was telling some of us traumatized as adults to seek to love ... that’s how our elders talk to us. We grew up not knowing love. That stuck with me all the way until today,” Littlechild, 81, said following the pope’s death Monday.

Littlechild was forced to attend residential schools over 14 years, where he suffered abuse.

He later became an athlete, lawyer, a grand chief of Alberta Treaty 6 and a member of Parliament. He also worked for decades with the United Nations, including on its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He was at the UN in New York on Monday when he learned about the pope’s death.

Littlechild was part of an Indigenous delegation that travelled in 2022 to meet with Francis at the Vatican and ask for an apology for the church’s role in residential schools.

Survivors were given 30 minutes to speak, he said.

Littlechild said he told the pope about how he and his siblings were taken from their home and brought to a residential school in when he was six.

He told the pontiff that sports saved him. “I said, ‘It gave me a way out of addictions, suicide’, you know, negative stuff I don’t even want to think about.”

He also told the pope that the church operated the highest number of residential schools in Alberta and many survivors wanted an apology.

As survivors kept telling their stories, the pope told his team to give them more time to speak.

When they left the meeting after three hours, Littlechild said the pope told him, “I’ll see you soon.”

Later in the week, during a final meeting with delegates, Francis said he was sorry.

“It was a collection of many stories that culminated in that call for those three little words to be spoken so that people could heal from their trauma, their childhood abuse, their addictions, violence in life,” Littlechild said.

The pope also announced he planned to visit Canada, and he did later in the year, delivering the first apology on Canadian soil at Maskwacis, Alta., home to four reserves, including Ermineskin Cree Nation, where Littlechild is from.

Littlechild said he may have impacted the pope’s decision to choose his community.

It was a historic day, and Littlechild said that the apology lifted a weight off his heart that he had been carrying as a survivor and after listening to 7,000 stories of abuse while with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“I was hearing my own personal story of abuse over and over and over again as commissioner. I didn’t want to do that job,” he said.

“And yet I’m so thankful that I did. That apology gave me an opportunity to forgive, which I did. And I told him that, ‘I forgave.’”

At Maskwacis, Littlechild also gifted the pope a headdress worn by his grandfather, a former Cree chief. It was a moment seen by people around the world.

“It was kind of controversial for some,” Littlechild added.

Some survivors felt the pope’s apology wasn’t enough and he didn’t deserve the honour. The papacy also had also discouraged anyone from replacing the papal tiara.

But Littlechild said he asked Francis for permission, and the pope gave Littlechild permission to place it on his head.

Littlechild travelled to Iqaluit for the pope’s last stop on the “penitential pilgrimage” in Canada.

It was the last time he spoke to Francis.

“I told him farewell. We talked about hockey.”

On Easter Sunday, the day before Francis died, Littlechild said he watched the pope’s last public appearance on TV, struggling to speak.

Littlechild said he was very sad to hear of the death but happy Francis has found peace.

He said he has asked the Vatican for permission to attend the pope’s funeral on Saturday.

“To have a friend leave you in this way is sad, and you’re at a loss of words.”

Francis restored respectful relationships with Indigenous people, Littlechild said.

“But I’m always told that we have a long way to go. And, yes, we do,” he said.

“Will the next pope elevate us to that next step?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2025.

Article written by Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press