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

By Fakiha Baig Wilton Littlechild remembers closing his eyes before Pope Francis lead 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…

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