CNN
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Inside the Vatican city, the home of Pope Leo, there is a huge collection of indigenous artifacts that some people say should not be there.
The collection includes thousands of colonial objects, including the unusual inuvialuit seal skin kayak from the Western Arctic, a pair of embroidered cree leather gloves, a 200-year-old wampum belt, baby belts from the people of Gwich, and beluga tooth necklaces.
They are relics of an era of cultural destruction, critics say that a century ago they were photographed as missionary trophies on lands far away in the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Francis has pledged to return artifacts to the Canadian community as part of what he called a “pilgrimage of repentance” due to the abuse of Indigenous peoples by the Church. But a few years later, they remain in the Vatican museums and vaults.
Indigenous leaders are urging Pope Leo to finish what Francis started and restore the artifacts.
“When things were taken that wasn’t something anyone else took, it was time to return them,” said Cindy Wood House Nepinack, national chief of First Nations Congress.
Calls to repatriate artifacts began to acquire steam in 2022. This comes when a group of representatives from Indigenous peoples, Inuit and Metis visited Rome for years of consultation with Pope Francis about historic abuse at a Canadian church-run housing school.
While there, the representatives were given a tour of several Vatican collections and were surprised to see precious artefacts thousands of miles from the community they once used.
“It was a very emotional experience to see all of these artifacts — whether they are Metis or Indigenous peoples of Inuit artifacts, it’s something we’ve never seen before,” said Victoria Pruden, president of the Metis National Council, representing Metis Indigenous peoples in northwestern Canada.
After that visit, and following Francis’ subsequent trip to Canada, he apologised for the church’s role in the residential school – the late Pope pledged to return the artifacts.
Leo, who held his first mass on May 18th, has yet to comment publicly on the issue. Vatican Museum did not respond to questions from CNN about whether the artifacts are planned to be repatriated.
The way the artifacts became the property of the Pope requires a trip to the time of Pope Pius XIII, who headed the Catholic Church since 1922.
Pius is known for promoting missionary work, and in 1923 he sent an appeal to orders around the world to gather evidence of the vast range of the Church.
“He said, send everything related to Indigenous life. Send sacred possessions. Send language materials. If we can send Indigenous people, send Indigenous people,” said Gloria Bell, professor of art history at McGill University.
“We had thousands of possessions stolen from Indigenous communities to please Pope Pius XI’s greed,” Bell said.
The church’s collection of Indigenous artifacts was compiled when the cultural identities of Indigenous Canadians were erased.
The Canadian government has forced Indigenous children to attend residential schools. Boarding schools are primarily run by the Catholic Church, designed by law to “kill Indians in children” and designed to assimilate into white Christian society.
In these schools, Indigenous children were not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture, and were severely punished for doing so. Thousands of children have died of abuse and neglect, and large graves have been discovered decades after the last residential school was closed in 1998.
Even if this injustice unfolded, their cultural possessions and artifacts were on display at the Vatican Mission Expo in 1925.
The Vatican claims that artifacts are gifts to the Pope. But Bell says it is a “fake story” that doesn’t take into account the context in which the object was retrieved.
“This acquisition period was truly a period of assimilation in Canadian colonial history,” Bell said.
The artifact was never returned. A century later, much of the cultural objects and artwork will remain in the Vatican, which is stored or exhibited at the Animamundi Ethnic Museum in the Vatican.
It’s not exactly clear how many Indigenous artifacts there are in Vatican collections, but the numbers are in “thousands,” Bell said. Indigenous leaders told CNN there was no full stock of what sacred items are housed there.
Raleigh MacDonald, an elder of the Enok Creenation, who grew up in the Indigenous Reserve of Maskoshik, Alberta in the 1950s and 1960s, knows what it’s like to take away your culture from you.
“We were prohibited as a nation from using our cultural regalia, cultural tools or medicines, and if we were caught, we were reported to our Indian agents,” McDonald said.
McDonald was only 11 years old when he was forced to take him from his home, which he shared with his grandmother and sent to the Erminskin Indian Residential School, one of Canada’s largest residential schools. Two weeks later he attempted to escape, but was caught by a barbed wire fence, and staff tore him, leaving behind scars.
In 2022, MacDonald returned to his former school location to witness Pope Francis’ historic apology on behalf of the Catholic Church.
“Sorry,” Francis said. “I humbly plead with the Indigenous people for the evil committed by many Christians.”
Pope Francis’ apology on behalf of the Catholic Church was very meaningful to many indigenous peoples in Canada. But reconciliation is a long process, and Indigenous leaders say Leo wants to continue what Francis started first and foremost by returning artifacts.
McDonald said the object represents a story and legacy that should have been passed down over generations.
“They could have been easy for you, but for us, they were very, very important,” he said.
During a 2022 visit to Canada, Francis said the local Catholic community is committed to promoting Indigenous culture, customs, language and educational processes that declare the declaration of Indigenous Indigenous rights as “spirit.”
Article 12 of UndRip states that Indigenous peoples have the right to use and control ritual objects, and the state shall strive to return them.
When asked again about the repatriation of Indigenous artifacts in 2023, Francis told reporters on his plane: He evoked the seventh commandment – “You should not steal” in expressing his support for reparations.
In recent years, museums around the world have increasingly returned items from collections that have been stolen or potentially ethically acquired to countries of origin.
Last year, the United States enacted new regulations requiring museums and federal agencies to consult or obtain informed consent from descendants, tribes, or native Hawaiian organizations before displaying human remains or cultural items.
In 2022, Pope Francis returned three fragments of Parthenon sculpture to Greece in a movement he described as a “gesture of friendship,” according to the BBC.
However, a 2024 survey by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail found that the Vatican has not returned one Indigenous item to Canada in recent years, with the exception of the 200-year-old Wampum Belt, which was loaned to a Montreal museum for just 51 days in 2023.
Pruden of the Metis National Council said Francis “undriped with her embrace.” She and other Indigenous leaders hope to see the artifacts return soon.
“What a beautiful homecoming to welcome these gifts made by our grandmother and grandfather,” Pruden said, describing the object as “a very important historical piece that has a very important historical piece to convey.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told the Canadian press that he discussed the return of the artifact during a meeting with the Canadian Catholic Cardinals this month ahead of Leo’s first mass, the first mass of Congress, Leo, a member of Parliament.
“It’s an unpleasant and harsh issue, but we have to do it,” Woodhouse Nepineck said.
“You want to correct past mistakes. That’s what we want to do for the sake of our survivors, our families, for the history of what happened here, and to make sure the story never dies.”
