Pope Francis' apology: Emotional moment as Indigenous woman sings Canada's national anthem in Cree

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An anguished rendering of Canada's national anthem in Cree by an Indigenous woman as tears streamed down her face marked one of several emotional moments in the first leg of Pope Francis's apology tour in Canada on Monday.

The unscripted moment capped a ceremony fraught with symbolism for thousands of residential school survivors who sat in somber silence as Francis said how "deeply sorry" he was for the Catholic church's role in Canada's abusive residential school system.

The pope spoke to about 2,000 people assembled around him in an open-air, circular auditorium while more watched on large screens from a distance.

Many were survivors of the residential school system that, over more than a century, forcibly separated more than 150,000 indigenous children from their families and subjected many to starvation, beatings and sexual abuse in what Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission called "cultural genocide."