Chief Bellegarde said that the pope’s direct apology in 2015 during a trip to Bolivia for “grave sins” committed by the church against Indigenous people in the Americas gave him confidence that a similar apology over residential schools was still possible.

The schools operated from 1883 until the last one closed in 1998. The commission found that children were severely punished for speaking Indigenous languages or following their cultural practices. It concluded that 3,201 students died while in the schools, often from mistreatment or neglect. About 80,000 former students are still alive.

Pope Francis has tried to decentralize authority away from the Vatican and giving more authority to local bishops. And while some in the Vatican bristle at the notion that the pope should have to answer to a request of a secular government, the more important factor could be what guidance came from the bishops in Canada.

“The big question is what is the position of the Canadian bishops on this,” said Thomas Reese, a veteran Vatican watcher and senior analyst at Religion News Service. “If the bishops are saying ‘Don’t do it,’ he is getting mixed signals and he tends to support the local bishops.” Mr. Reese added that “for him to turn down the bishops and the government, that would be noteworthy.”

Some in the Vatican have worried about the legal implications of apologies in cases with potentially large damages. About 50 Catholic organizations agreed to a financial settlement in the case of residential schools but were unable to raise enough money to fully cover the commitment. A 2015 court ruling released them from fulfilling the agreement.

Yet popes have recently made a habit of public apologies.

After apologizing for Catholic involvement in the slave trade, the church’s treatment of Jews and treating Galileo as a heretic, Pope John Paul II issued in 2000 a sweeping blanket request for forgiveness for the church’s sins over the past 2,000 years. “Recognizing the deviations of the past serves to reawaken our consciences to the compromises of the present,” John Paul II said.