The Vatican has returned 62 Indigenous artifacts to Canada, 100 years after they were taken from tribes and placed in a mission museum in Rome.
The items were given by Pope Leo XIV on Saturday to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), which says it plans to return them to their original home communities.
The move comes three years after Pope Francis issued a historic apology to Canada's Indigenous people for the church's role in the “genocide” and suppression of Indigenous identity through the residential school program.
A joint statement from the Vatican and the CCCB said the pope “wants this gift to represent a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity.”
The statement added that the artifacts “testify to the history of the meeting of indigenous faiths and cultures.”
Objects brought from several different communities in Canada were sent by missionaries to Rome to appear in the 1925 exhibition, which featured over 100,000 objects.
Among the returned artifacts is an Inuit kayak that was historically used to hunt whales in Canada's far north and a set of embroidered gloves that came from the Cree people.
Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See told CBC News that the items are currently in storage in Rome and will be delivered back to Canada on December 6th.
In 2022, Pope Francis made a “pilgrimage of penitence” across Canada, where he apologized to local tribal leaders. During the trip, communities demanded the return of their artifacts.
The CCCB says the items will be donated to Canada's national Indigenous organizations, which will “then ensure the artifacts are reconnected with their communities of origin.”
The cost of repatriating the items has been pre-paid by the tribes, who plan to hold ceremonies before their official return, according to CBC.
Canada's Foreign Minister praised the move, calling it “an important step that honors the diverse cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples and supports ongoing efforts to achieve truth, justice and reconciliation.”
The objects were kept in the ethnographic collection of the Vatican Museum, known as the Anima Mundi Museum. The church called these items “gifts” given by tribal leaders. Critics have disputed this characterization given the imbalance of power at the time of their transfer.
The items were taken to Europe at a time when Canadian laws, as well as Catholic edicts, prohibited native spiritual practices, leading to the prohibition of the use of certain items during ceremonies.
