Vatican returns Indigenous cultural items to Canada's Catholic bishops on a 'historic day'

A century-old Inuvialuit kayak formerly used for white sturgeon and whale hunts, on with 61 other ethnical objects from  number one Nations, Métis and Inuit communities long held in Vatican Museums vaults, will return to Canada on Dec. 6.

Pope Leo XIV has gifted the cultural items to the bishops, said a joint Saturday morning statement by the Vatican and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).

The announcement was made following a meeting at the Holy See between the Pope and a CCCB delegation, including its president, Bishop Pierre Goudreault, Rev. Richard Smith, archbishop of Vancouver, and Rev. Jean Vézina, general secretary.

“At the conclusion of the journey initiated by Pope Francis that included his Apostolic Journey to Canada in 2022, various audiences with indigenous communities and the publication of the Declaration on the Doctrine of Discovery in 2023, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV desires that this gift represent a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity,” the statement said.

It also said the Pope has given the objects to the CCCB, who “are committed to ensuring that these artifacts are properly safeguarded, respected and preserved.”

"The CCCB will proceed, as soon as possible, to transfer these artifacts to the National Indigenous Organizations (NIOs). The NIOs will then ensure that the artifacts are reunited with their communities of origin," the Canadian bishops said.

Joyce Napier is Canadian ambassador to the Holy See who was part of the Canadian government effort to help repatriate the cultural items.

“Today is an historic day,” said Napier.

“There have been many conversations with the Vatican and CCCB, and it was clear the Vatican wished to return the objects,” with Pope Francis’s illness and death temporarily slowing the negotiations, she added.

Napier said the items, now in vaults inside the Vatican Museums, will be packaged in crates and flown to Montreal via Frankfurt on an Air Canada flight set to arrive on December 6.  

From there, they will be shipped to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., where experts will assess their condition, confirm their origins and work with Indigenous representatives to decide where they should ultimately end up.

After years of calls for repatriation, the move is being seen as a significant step for Indigenous communities where for decades children were taken from their families and forced to attend Catholic Church-run residential schools, where abuse was rampant.

The return is structured as a church-to-church “gift,” which Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said is the how the Vatican returns cultural objects, allowing it to avoid setting a precedent of returning cultural objects directly to nations or communities.

In 2023, a year after Pope Francis’s “penitential” trip to Canada when he apologized  for some members of the Church’s role in residential schools, Francis acknowledged the importance of restitution of the items, many considered sacred by some First Nations. During meetings in Italy, Canada's prime minister at the time, Justin Trudeau, and later Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly pressed the Pope and the Vatican secretary of state to return the cultural objects.

The kayak was among 100,000 objects originally sent to Rome in 1925 for a world exhibition organized by Pope Pius XI, who invited Catholic missionaries to ship “examples of Indigenous life” from the regions where the men worked. Other notable items include a wampum belt from Kanesatake, Que., that was “donated” to Pope Gregory XVI in 1831, embroidered leather gloves of Cree origin and a Gwich’in baby belt.

Many of the objects came from Indigenous communities during a period of forced conversion, cultural suppression and the residential school system in Canada, and most remained inside Vatican Museums storage rooms.

Indigenous leaders stress that ceremonies must take place before the artifacts make the journey home.

Some have criticized the “church-to-church” approach and insisted communities be directly involved in identifying the items. 

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