Deacon Harry Lafond is well aware of the serious, sorrowful situation which has prompted Pope Francis to announce a visit to Canada. But he does not believe the papal visit should drown in tears.

When Chief Phil Fontaine arrives in Rome to meet with Vatican officials and Pope Francis he will be laser focused on having the Holy Father apologize on Canadian soil, in an Indigenous context, for the damage done to children and communities by Catholic participation in the residential school system.

Regional efforts to raise $30 million on behalf of Indigenous healing and reconciliation projects appear to be on hold while the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops hammers out a national framework for regional and diocesan campaigns.

The first responsibility of a journalist is to get the facts right. In that regard, I failed in my column “Lack of transparency shatters credibility” in the Oct. 17 Catholic Register. In that article, I took Canada’s bishops to task for failing to meet their responsibility to live up to agreements to provide healing and reconciliation to the survivors of residential schools.

Pope Francis has accepted an invitation by Canada’s bishops to visit Canada “on a pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation.”

On the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, 6,509 orange ribbons spanned the banisters in the foyer at All Saints Catholic Secondary School in Whitby, Ont., each representing a child from an unmarked grave at a former residential school.

Even in the world of what the late, great Allan Fotheringham called the “shy egomania” of journalism, moments of humility tilt unexpectedly upward their beautiful faces and make you see anew.

If Catholics really are going to raise $30 million to fund Indigenous-led reconciliation projects across the country, they’re going to have to run a very different campaign than the $25-million “best efforts” campaign that raised just $3.7 million between 2008 and 2014, say Catholic philanthropists and fundraisers.

The Catholic bishops of Canada have made a “financial pledge” with a “target of $30 million” over five years “as a tangible expression of their commitment to walk with the Indigenous Peoples of this land.” Local parishes will be “encouraged” to take up special collections “to support healing and reconciliation initiatives for residential school survivors, their families and their communities.”

For Canada’s Catholics, the first ever National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is “a day of penance and a day of hope,” Cardinal Thomas Collins said in a prayer service at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto.

As apologies go, the one issued by Canada’s Catholic bishops to Indigenous peoples marks a significant step in this long, long reconciliation journey.

Graydon Nicholas accepts the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ apology for more than a century of wrongs by Canadian Catholics in residential schools and hopes it will lead to a papal apology on Canadian soil.

OTTAWA -- Canada’s Catholic bishops have “unequivocally” apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system and have raised the possibility of a visit by the Pope to Canada as part of the “healing journey” between Canada’s Indigenous peoples and the Church.

OTTAWA -- A day set aside to remember how Canada’s Indigenous communities suffered under this country’s residential school system will take on added meaning this year when the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Sept. 30 becomes a federal statutory holiday for the first time.

The first official National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is Sept. 30, “an opportunity for each public servant to recognize and commemorate the legacy of residential schools,” the government says.