Pope Francis expressed his 'pain' over the discovery of the remains of 215 children in a mass grave at a former indigenous boarding school in Canada run by the Church. But he did not go so far as to offer the apology that many people have been calling for over the unfolding scandal. The Kamloops Indian Residential School was the largest of 139 boarding schools set up in the late 19th century to assimilate Canada's indigenous peoples, with up to 500 students registered and attending at any one time. It was operated by the Catholic church from 1890 to 1969, before Ottawa took over its administration and closed it a decade later.