ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (RNS) — On his return flight from a six-day “penitential pilgrimage” to apologize to the Indigenous people of Canada on Friday, Pope Francis spoke about his health struggles and what their implications might be for the future of his papacy.

“I don’t think I can continue going on trips with the same pace I had in the past. At my age and with my limitations, I need to save energy in order to serve the church,” the pope told reporters aboard the papal plane, while being seated for the first time during the traditional inflight press conference.

“On the other hand, I might need to think about the possibility of stepping aside. It wouldn’t be a catastrophe. The pope can change, that is not a problem,” he added.

Francis traveled throughout the vast country July 24-29, meeting with First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities in on their own lands. From Edmonton to Quebec City to the far-northern island city of Iqaluit, the pope embarked and disembarked the plane by using a lift and met with Indigenous people on his wheelchair.

Despite the obvious toll the trip had on the pontiff, he appeared lively and energetic during the press conference aboard the papal plane, addressing a wide range of issues. Speaking to journalists, the pope reflected on the pressing issues of his trip by condemning as “evil and unjust” the papal justification for colonialism in the past, enshrined through the Doctrine of Discovery. He described the forceful assimilation of Indigenous people and the attempted erasure of their culture as genocide.

“It’s a genocide,” Francis said, referring to the state and church led practice of “taking away children, changing the culture, the mentality and the conditions and a race” of Indigenous people. The pope said he apologized and condemned the role the church played in the administration of residential schools, which often forcibly removed children from their families and traditions.

The pope said the papal bulls that in the past provided a justification for the colonization and forceful conversion of Indigenous lands were “grievous” and suggested the Vatican is working to amend the Doctrine of Discovery. He encouraged “going back and fixing the wrong that was done” but underlined that colonization continues today in new forms of homogenization and extinction of local diversity.

As an example, Francis spoke about the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar who “don’t have citizenship rights and are considered inferior.”

The papal trip to Canada focused especially on St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus and a beloved figure in Catholic Indigenous communities. The pope underlined the important “role of women in the transmission and development of the faith.”

“The church is a woman. The church is a wife. The Church is not a man,” he said, adding that the vision of the church as a mother must prevail above any “macho power.”

As many women in the world fight for reproductive rights, Pope Francis weighed in on contraceptives, which were deemed “intrinsically wrong” by the church following Paul VI’s controversial 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, On Human Life, because they deny an openness to life.

“When dogma or morality develop it’s a good thing,” the pope said, before signaling some possibility of developing a revised Catholic doctrine on contraceptives, while insisting this must be done within the church and respecting tradition. “A church that doesn’t develop its thinking in an ecclesial sense is a church that goes backward,” he added.

QUEBEC CITY (RNS) — On his second day in Quebec City, Pope Francis offered a path forward for the Catholic Church in Canada as it seeks forgiveness and reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples harmed by its past actions. He also addressed the challenges of both clericalism in the church and mounting secularism in the country.

In a homily on Thursday (July 28) for clergy and church members gathered at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the pope also criticized those who would impose the church’s beliefs on the public square.

“God does not want us to be slaves, but sons and daughters,” Francis said. “He does not want to make decisions for us, or oppress us with a sacral power, exercised in a world governed by religious laws. No! He created us to be free, and he asks us to be mature and responsible persons in life and in society.”

The pope’s remarks take place as Christian nationalist rhetoric gains traction in conservative political parties in Europe and in the United States. Recent comments by Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, claiming she is “tired of this separation of church and state junk,” have sparked debates in the U.S. regarding the role of religion in government.

His comments were also aimed at combating clericalism — privileging clergy and religious people above lay faithful in authority and importance — which the pope has blamed for allowing sexual abuse and abuse of power to propagate within the Catholic Church.

Francis is on a six-day, self-described “penitential pilgrimage” in Canada (July 24-29), where he has formally apologized to First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples who have suffered oppression and had their cultures nearly eradicated by religious and government authorities.

For the church to be credible on its “new path” toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, it must acknowledge and atone for its past failures, the pope said. For the first time since his arrival in Canada, the pope acknowledged the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults perpetrated by clergy in the country, calling for “firm action and an irreversible commitment.”

“Together with you, I would like once more to ask forgiveness of all the victims. The pain and the shame we feel must become an occasion for conversion: Never again!” he said. “Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”

Mending the relationship with the disenfranchised Indigenous community is not the only challenge facing the Catholic Church in Canada today, the pope said. “We can immediately think of secularization,” Francis said, which has relegated faith and God “to the background.”

“God seems to have disappeared from the horizon, and his word no longer seems a compass guiding our lives, our basic decisions, our human and social relationships,” he added.

Instead of trying to impose religion on the state or lamenting the bygone times when clergy swayed political power, the pope said, “secularization demands we reflect on the changes in society that have influenced the way in which people think about and organize their lives.”

It’s not the faith that is suffering a crisis, he continued, “but some of the forms and ways in which we present it.”