VATICAN CITY — The Vatican returned 62 Indigenous artifacts from Canada on Saturday, including an iconic Inuit kayak, in a historic move acknowledging the Catholic Church’s role in suppressing Indigenous cultures during colonial times.
Pope Leo XIV handed the artifacts and supporting documentation to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which will ensure their return to Indigenous communities. The Vatican and Canadian bishops described the handover as a “gift” and a “concrete sign of dialogue, respect, and fraternity.”
The items, once part of the Vatican’s ethnographic collection at the Anima Mundi museum, will arrive in Montreal on December 6 and first be displayed at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa. From there, they will be reunited with their originating communities, according to Pomeline Martinoski, communications director for the Canadian bishops’ conference.
Most of the artifacts were sent to Rome in 1925 by Catholic missionaries for an exhibition in the Vatican gardens. The Vatican has maintained that the items were “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, meant to celebrate the church’s global reach and missionary work. However, historians and Indigenous groups have long questioned the legitimacy of these “gifts,” pointing to the coercive power dynamics of the period and Canada’s forced assimilation policies, which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand welcomed the return, describing it as an important step in honoring Indigenous cultural heritage and supporting truth, justice, and reconciliation efforts.
Negotiations accelerated after Pope Francis met Indigenous leaders in 2022 to offer an apology for the church’s role in Canada’s residential schools. During that visit, leaders were shown some of the artifacts, including the kayak, wampum belts, war clubs, and masks, and requested their return. Francis later affirmed the importance of returning items on a case-by-case basis.
The Vatican said the timing of the return during the Holy Year marks exactly 100 years since the original 1925 exhibition. “This is an act of ecclesial sharing, with which the Successor of Peter entrusts to the Church in Canada these artifacts, which bear witness to the history of the encounter between faith and the cultures of the Indigenous peoples,” the joint statement said.
The “church-to-church” model mirrors the 2023 restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to the Orthodox Church in Greece. While the Vatican describes the return as a donation, some historians have called for greater transparency about the provenance of the remaining artifacts in its collection. Gloria Bell, an art historian of Metis ancestry, noted that thousands of Indigenous objects remain in Vatican museums and stressed the need for their repatriation.
The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, which represents the region where the kayak originated, will oversee the transportation to Canada. Items with uncertain origins will be held in trust by the Canadian Museum of History while Indigenous experts research their provenance.
Bishop Pierre Goudreault, president of the Canadian bishops’ conference, described the return as a milestone for reconciliation, emphasizing the church’s commitment to support Indigenous communities in preserving and passing on their heritage.
As part of its broader reckoning with its colonial past, the Vatican formally repudiated the 15th-century “Doctrine of Discovery” in 2023, which had legitimized European seizure of Indigenous lands. The repatriation of the artifacts continues the dialogue initiated under Pope Francis and represents a concrete step toward acknowledging and addressing historical injustices.
Paraluman P. Funtanilla
Paraluman P. Funtanilla is Tutubi News Magazine's Marketing Specialist and is a Contributing Editor. She finished her degree in Communication Arts in De La Salle Lipa. She has worked as a Digital Marketer for start-up businesses and small business spaces for the past two years. She has earned certificates from Coursera on Brand Management: Aligning Business Brand and Behavior and Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content. She also worked with Asia Express Romania TV Show.
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