The Pope returns 62 artefacts to the indigenous people as a “concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity”

The Vatican on Saturday brought back indigenous humanities from Canada as part of the Catholic Church’s reassessment of its role in helping indigenous culture in the Americas.

Pope leo xiv He provided art materials, including the iconic insuit kayak, and supported documents in the transmission of the Canadian conference of Catholic bishops during the audience. According to a joint statement from the Vatican and Canada, the pieces were a gift and “a concrete symbol of dialogue, respect and fraternity.”

The objects were part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the anima Mundi Museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid a broader museum debate over the return of cultural assets taken from indigenous peoples during colonial times.

Most of the items in the Vatican collection were sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for the 1925 exhibitions in the Vatican Gardens that filled the Holy Year that year.

The Vatican emphasizes the items “gifts” to Pope Pius Xi, who wanted to celebrate the world around the world, its missionaries and the lives of indigenous evangelical people.

But historians, indigenous groups and experts have long questioned whether things could really be done so liberally, given the power imbalance at play in the Catholic movement at the time. During those years, Catholic religious orders helped enforce the Canadian government Forced Acquisition Policy of eliminating indigenous cultures, the Canadian and Community Commission on Cenanciation called it “cultural reproduction.”

Part of that policy includes softening things used for traditional and traditional rituals, such as the 1885 potlatch ban that banned the first tribal festival. Those objects are taken by museums in Canada, the US and Europe, as well as private collections.

Conversations speed things up

Negotiations for the return of the Vatican objects have been accelerated after Pope Francis in 2022 met with indigenous leaders who went to the Vatican to receive his to apologize for the role of the church in running Canada’s best tree-dwelling schools. During his visit, they were shown other items in the collection, including the Inuit Kayak, Wampum belts, war clubs, war clubs and masks, and asked for their return.

Francis later said that he wanted to return things and others to the gathering of the Vietnamese for the situation, saying: “In a situation where you can come back to touch, it is better to do it.”

Victoria said on Saturday things were repeated during the Holy Year, exactly 100 years after the 1925 show where it started in Rome.

“This is an act of ecomsterial sharing, in which the successor of Peter gives the church in Canada these artifacts, which bear witness to the history of the encounter between the faith and culture of the indigenous people of Canada.

It can be added that Canadian Catholic authorities are committed to ensuring that artefacts are “well protected, respected and preserved.” The authorities once said that the Canadian bishops would receive the art with a clear understanding that the indigenous custodians would be the indigenous communities.

The items are expected to be taken first from the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. There, experts and indigenous groups will try to see where things came from, down in a specific community, and what should be done with them, what it means.

Tortious recount process

As part of its general census and the Catholic colonial past, the Vatican in the year 2023 lost this “Doctrine of adoption,” papal bulls “created by the adoption of traditional counts of indigenous countries.

The statement notes the historical observation of the Vatican itself in the colonial abuse – the colonial abuse committed by the European powers, although it did not save the indigenous needs to legally remove the papal bulls.

Victoria on Saturday points to the 2023 respect for the doctrine of adoption in its statement, saying that the return of Leo’s artefacts marks the “journey” established by Francis.