Latest news with #IndigenousArtifacts
CNN
29-05-2025
- General
- CNN
The Vatican has held sacred belongings for a century. Now their Indigenous owners want them back
Inside Vatican City, the home of Pope Leo, lies a vast collection of Indigenous artifacts that some people say shouldn't be there. The collection includes thousands dozens of colonial-era objects, including a rare Inuvialuit sealskin kayak from the western Arctic, a pair of embroidered Cree leather gloves, a 200-year-old wampum belt, a baby belt from the Gwich'in people and a beluga tooth necklace. They are relics of a time of cultural destruction, critics say, taken by the Roman Catholic Church a century ago as trophies of missionaries in far-off lands. Pope Francis promised to return the artifacts to communities in Canada as part of what he called a 'penitential pilgrimage' for abuses against Indigenous people by the Church. But several years on, they remain in the Vatican's museums and storage vaults. Indigenous leaders are now urging Pope Leo to finish what Francis started and give the artifacts back. 'When things were taken that weren't somebody else's to take, it's time to return them,' said Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Calls to repatriate the artifacts began gaining steam in 2022, when a group of First Nations, Inuit and Métis delegates visited Rome for long-awaited talks with Pope Francis about historical abuses at Canada's church-run residential schools. While there, the delegates were given a tour of some of the Vatican's collection and were astonished to see treasured relics stored thousands of miles away from the communities who once used them. 'It was quite an emotional experience to see all of these artifacts – whether they be Métis, First Nations of Inuit artifacts – so far away,' said Victoria Pruden, President of the Métis National Council, which represents the Métis Indigenous people of northwestern Canada. Following that visit – and Francis's subsequent trip to Canada, where he apologized for the Church's role in residential schools – the late pontiff pledged to return the relics. Leo, who held his inaugural mass on May 18, has not yet commented publicly on the issue. Vatican Museums did not respond to questions from CNN about whether it plans to repatriate the artifacts. How the artifacts came to be in the pope's possession requires a trip back to the era of Pope Pius XI, who led the Catholic Church from 1922. Pius was known for promoting the work of missionaries, and in 1923 sent a call out to orders worldwide to gather evidence of the church's vast reach. 'He said: Send in everything related to Indigenous life. Send in sacred belongings. Send in language materials. Send in Indigenous people, if you can manage it,' said Gloria Bell, an assistant professor of art history at McGill University. 'There were thousands of belongings stolen from Indigenous communities to please the greed of Pope Pius XI,' said Bell, who documented the exhibition in her book 'Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome.' The church's collection of Indigenous artifacts was compiled at a time when the cultural identity of Canada's Indigenous people was being erased. The Canadian government had made it compulsory for Indigenous children to attend residential schools – boarding schools largely run by the Catholic Church designed by law to 'kill the Indian in the child' and assimilate them into White Christian society. In these schools, Indigenous children were not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture and were harshly punished for doing so. Thousands of children died from abuse or neglect, with mass graves still being found decades after the last residential school closed in 1998. Even as this injustice unfolded, their cultural belongings and artifacts were being displayed in the 1925 Vatican Mission Exposition, a 13-month long exhibit promoting the Church's influence around the world, which drew millions of visitors. The Vatican has claimed the artifacts were gifts to the Pope. But Bell says that's a 'false narrative' which doesn't consider the context in which the objects were acquired. 'This acquisition period was a really assimilative period in Canadian colonial history,' Bell said. The artifacts were never returned. A century later, many of the cultural objects and artwork remain at the Vatican, either in storage or on display at the Vatican's Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum. While it's not known exactly how many Indigenous artifacts are in the Vatican's collection, the number is in 'the thousands,' Bell said. Indigenous leaders told CNN they don't have a full inventory of what sacred items are housed there. Laurie McDonald, an elder from Enoch Cree Nation who grew up on an Indigenous reserve in Maskêkosihk, Alberta in the 1950s and 1960s, knows what it's like to have your culture taken from you. 'We were forbidden as a nation to use our cultural regalia, our cultural tools, or our medicines, and if we were caught, we were reported to the Indian agent,' said McDonald, referring to the Canadian government official responsible for assimilation policy. McDonald was just 11 years old when he was forcibly taken from the home he shared with his grandmother and sent to Ermineskin Indian Residential School, one of Canada's largest residential schools. Two weeks in, he tried to escape, but became caught on a barbed wire fence and a staff member ripped him off, leaving scars. In 2022, McDonald returned to the site of his former school to witness Pope Francis's historic apology on behalf of the Catholic Church. 'I am deeply sorry,' Francis said, looking out over the land of four First Nations. 'I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.' Pope Francis's apology on behalf of the Catholic Church was deeply meaningful for many Indigenous peoples in Canada. But reconciliation is a long process, and Indigenous leaders say they hope Leo will continue what Francis started – first and foremost, by returning the artifacts. McDonald said the objects represent stories and legacies which should have been passed down generations. 'Those may have been simple stuff to you, but to us, they were very, very important,' he said. During his visit to Canada in 2022, Francis said local Catholic communities were committed to promoting Indigenous culture, customs, language and education processes 'in the spirit of' The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to CBC. Article 12 of UNDRIP says Indigenous peoples have the right to use and control their ceremonial objects, and states shall endeavor to return them. Asked again in 2023 about repatriating the Indigenous artifacts, Francis told reporters aboard his plane, 'This is going on, with Canada, at least we were in agreement to do so.' He invoked the seventh commandment – 'thou shall not steal' – in expressing his support for restitution. In recent years, museums around the world have increasingly returned items in their collections that were stolen or potentially acquired unethically to their countries of origin. Last year, new regulations came into effect in the US 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 the Parthenon sculptures to Greece in a move he described as a 'gesture of friendship,' according to the BBC. However, a 2024 investigation by Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail found that the Vatican had not returned a single Indigenous-made item to Canada in recent years, except for a 200-year-old wampum belt which was loaned to a museum in Montreal for just 51 days in 2023. Pruden, of the Métis National Council, said Francis 'really moved things forward by embracing (UNDRIP).' She and other Indigenous leaders hope to soon see the artifacts returned. 'What a beautiful homecoming it would be to welcome these gifts that were made by our grandmothers and our grandfathers,' Pruden said, calling the objects 'very important historical pieces that have a story to tell.' Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed the return of the artifacts in a meeting with Canadian Catholic Cardinals in Rome this month ahead of Leo's first mass, Jaime Battiste, a member of parliament who was also at the meeting, told the Canadian Press. Woodhouse Nepinak said it's 'an uncomfortable and tough issue, but it has to be done.' 'You want to right the wrongs of the past. That's what we want to do for our survivors, for their families, for the history of what happened here and to make sure that the story never dies out.'
CNN
29-05-2025
- General
- CNN
The Vatican has held sacred belongings for a century. Now their Indigenous owners want them back
Inside Vatican City, the home of Pope Leo, lies a vast collection of Indigenous artifacts that some people say shouldn't be there. The collection includes thousands dozens of colonial-era objects, including a rare Inuvialuit sealskin kayak from the western Arctic, a pair of embroidered Cree leather gloves, a 200-year-old wampum belt, a baby belt from the Gwich'in people and a beluga tooth necklace. They are relics of a time of cultural destruction, critics say, taken by the Roman Catholic Church a century ago as trophies of missionaries in far-off lands. Pope Francis promised to return the artifacts to communities in Canada as part of what he called a 'penitential pilgrimage' for abuses against Indigenous people by the Church. But several years on, they remain in the Vatican's museums and storage vaults. Indigenous leaders are now urging Pope Leo to finish what Francis started and give the artifacts back. 'When things were taken that weren't somebody else's to take, it's time to return them,' said Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Calls to repatriate the artifacts began gaining steam in 2022, when a group of First Nations, Inuit and Métis delegates visited Rome for long-awaited talks with Pope Francis about historical abuses at Canada's church-run residential schools. While there, the delegates were given a tour of some of the Vatican's collection and were astonished to see treasured relics stored thousands of miles away from the communities who once used them. 'It was quite an emotional experience to see all of these artifacts – whether they be Métis, First Nations of Inuit artifacts – so far away,' said Victoria Pruden, President of the Métis National Council, which represents the Métis Indigenous people of northwestern Canada. Following that visit – and Francis's subsequent trip to Canada, where he apologized for the Church's role in residential schools – the late pontiff pledged to return the relics. Leo, who held his inaugural mass on May 18, has not yet commented publicly on the issue. Vatican Museums did not respond to questions from CNN about whether it plans to repatriate the artifacts. How the artifacts came to be in the pope's possession requires a trip back to the era of Pope Pius XI, who led the Catholic Church from 1922. Pius was known for promoting the work of missionaries, and in 1923 sent a call out to orders worldwide to gather evidence of the church's vast reach. 'He said: Send in everything related to Indigenous life. Send in sacred belongings. Send in language materials. Send in Indigenous people, if you can manage it,' said Gloria Bell, an assistant professor of art history at McGill University. 'There were thousands of belongings stolen from Indigenous communities to please the greed of Pope Pius XI,' said Bell, who documented the exhibition in her book 'Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome.' The church's collection of Indigenous artifacts was compiled at a time when the cultural identity of Canada's Indigenous people was being erased. The Canadian government had made it compulsory for Indigenous children to attend residential schools – boarding schools largely run by the Catholic Church designed by law to 'kill the Indian in the child' and assimilate them into White Christian society. In these schools, Indigenous children were not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture and were harshly punished for doing so. Thousands of children died from abuse or neglect, with mass graves still being found decades after the last residential school closed in 1998. Even as this injustice unfolded, their cultural belongings and artifacts were being displayed in the 1925 Vatican Mission Exposition, a 13-month long exhibit promoting the Church's influence around the world, which drew millions of visitors. The Vatican has claimed the artifacts were gifts to the Pope. But Bell says that's a 'false narrative' which doesn't consider the context in which the objects were acquired. 'This acquisition period was a really assimilative period in Canadian colonial history,' Bell said. The artifacts were never returned. A century later, many of the cultural objects and artwork remain at the Vatican, either in storage or on display at the Vatican's Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum. While it's not known exactly how many Indigenous artifacts are in the Vatican's collection, the number is in 'the thousands,' Bell said. Indigenous leaders told CNN they don't have a full inventory of what sacred items are housed there. Laurie McDonald, an elder from Enoch Cree Nation who grew up on an Indigenous reserve in Maskêkosihk, Alberta in the 1950s and 1960s, knows what it's like to have your culture taken from you. 'We were forbidden as a nation to use our cultural regalia, our cultural tools, or our medicines, and if we were caught, we were reported to the Indian agent,' said McDonald, referring to the Canadian government official responsible for assimilation policy. McDonald was just 11 years old when he was forcibly taken from the home he shared with his grandmother and sent to Ermineskin Indian Residential School, one of Canada's largest residential schools. Two weeks in, he tried to escape, but became caught on a barbed wire fence and a staff member ripped him off, leaving scars. In 2022, McDonald returned to the site of his former school to witness Pope Francis's historic apology on behalf of the Catholic Church. 'I am deeply sorry,' Francis said, looking out over the land of four First Nations. 'I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.' Pope Francis's apology on behalf of the Catholic Church was deeply meaningful for many Indigenous peoples in Canada. But reconciliation is a long process, and Indigenous leaders say they hope Leo will continue what Francis started – first and foremost, by returning the artifacts. McDonald said the objects represent stories and legacies which should have been passed down generations. 'Those may have been simple stuff to you, but to us, they were very, very important,' he said. During his visit to Canada in 2022, Francis said local Catholic communities were committed to promoting Indigenous culture, customs, language and education processes 'in the spirit of' The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to CBC. Article 12 of UNDRIP says Indigenous peoples have the right to use and control their ceremonial objects, and states shall endeavor to return them. Asked again in 2023 about repatriating the Indigenous artifacts, Francis told reporters aboard his plane, 'This is going on, with Canada, at least we were in agreement to do so.' He invoked the seventh commandment – 'thou shall not steal' – in expressing his support for restitution. In recent years, museums around the world have increasingly returned items in their collections that were stolen or potentially acquired unethically to their countries of origin. Last year, new regulations came into effect in the US 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 the Parthenon sculptures to Greece in a move he described as a 'gesture of friendship,' according to the BBC. However, a 2024 investigation by Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail found that the Vatican had not returned a single Indigenous-made item to Canada in recent years, except for a 200-year-old wampum belt which was loaned to a museum in Montreal for just 51 days in 2023. Pruden, of the Métis National Council, said Francis 'really moved things forward by embracing (UNDRIP).' She and other Indigenous leaders hope to soon see the artifacts returned. 'What a beautiful homecoming it would be to welcome these gifts that were made by our grandmothers and our grandfathers,' Pruden said, calling the objects 'very important historical pieces that have a story to tell.' Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed the return of the artifacts in a meeting with Canadian Catholic Cardinals in Rome this month ahead of Leo's first mass, Jaime Battiste, a member of parliament who was also at the meeting, told the Canadian Press. Woodhouse Nepinak said it's 'an uncomfortable and tough issue, but it has to be done.' 'You want to right the wrongs of the past. That's what we want to do for our survivors, for their families, for the history of what happened here and to make sure that the story never dies out.'
CTV News
18-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Carney leads Canadian delegation to the Vatican for Pope's inaugural mass
Prime Minister Mark Carney is pictured during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, not shown, in Rome, Saturday, May 17, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld ROME — Prime Minister Mark Carney is at the Vatican today, leading a Canadian delegation attending the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV. Carney, a devout Catholic, will be among a number of world leaders and heads of state in attendance who will all have a brief meeting with the pontiff inside Saint Peter's Basilica after the mass. Carney met a number of them on Saturday on his first official visit to Italy, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who he hosted at Canada's Official Residence to the Italian Republic. Thirteen Canadian MPs will also attend the mass, including Jaime Battiste, who was part of a reception with Canadian Catholic Cardinals on Saturday evening in Rome alongside the prime minister. The Nova Scotia MP says he's looking forward to hearing how the Pope 'sets the tone' for how he will lead. 'It's kind of like our version of the speech from the throne as members of Parliament,' Battiste told reporters outside Canada's Official Residence. Indigenous leaders have long called on the Vatican to repatriate thousands of Indigenous artifacts taken from communities in Canada. The late Pope Francis had expressed a willingness to return colonial-era artifacts in the Vatican Museum. Battiste said the return of the artifacts came up in his meeting with the Cardinals, and their return is an important step toward reconciliation. 'I've always said that reconciliation is a journey, not a destination, and we all have steps to take on that journey,' Battiste said. 'I was proud to see our prime minister was talking about reconciliation between Indigenous communities and the Catholic church.' Quebec MP Jean-Yves Duclos is also part of the Canadian delegation to the Vatican. He said the church plays an important role in fostering peace between countries. Last week Leo offered to host peace talks at the Vatican between Russia and Ukraine. 'We need more peace in this world, and I think we will be hearing more of that on the part of the Pope,' Duclos told reporters. 'I think (hosting peace talks) is a very important thing that the church can do. The church is not an armed country, it's a small state … with a lot of influence. To try to bring people together, as opposed to divide our humanity, is the right thing to do.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 18, 2025. Nick Murray, The Canadian Press
CBC
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Indigenous leaders call on new Pope to return thousands of artifacts
The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) is calling for the Vatican to return sacred First Nation artifacts taken from Indigenous communities during the residential school era. The FSIN, which represents Saskatchewan's First Nations, has previously formally requested the repatriation of items including sacred pipes, medicine bundles, ceremonial regalia and other cultural objects currently housed in the Vatican Museums in Vatican City. FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron has renewed that request in light of Pope Leo XIV's recent appointment as head of the Catholic Church. "Every single one of those artifacts are sacred items there, crucial for the healing journey for many residential school survivors," Cameron said in an interview Wednesday. Indigenous leaders from Saskatchewan were part of a delegation that went to the Vatican in 2022 to meet Pope Francis. For that visit, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops arranged for a group of First Nations, Métis and Inuit delegates to meet Francis at the Vatican, and see some of the artifacts during private tours of the Vatican Museums. They included an Inuvialuit kayak still held at the Vatican Museums, along with thousands of other Indigenous artifacts. Cameron said every item put back in the hands of Indigenous people would go a long way in the healing journey of residential school survivors. He said there may even be pictures of children whose families never saw them again. "There were many that were tortured and beaten to death and never made it home, just totally vanished. But we know what happened. They were murdered," he said. Floyd Favel, curator of the Chief Poundmaker Museum and Gallery on Poundmaker First Nation, about 175 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon, said in an interview that the artifacts are living objects that are part of Indigenous people's legacy. "They hold our history. They hold our culture," Favel said. "It does strengthen our link with the past. And we need that more these days because our languages and our cultures, they're very much threatened." The Catholic Church previously justified colonization of Indigenous people through its Doctrine of Discovery, a legal concept backed by 15th-century papal bulls. Pope Francis repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery in 2023 after decades of advocacy by Indigenous Peoples worldwide. "We lost our culture, and it's in a fragile state. When you bring back these objects, it will awaken people because these objects are living entities. You could say spiritual energies, living art," Favel said. Victoria Pruden, president of the Métis National Council, said in a statement to CBC that she is asking the Vatican to work with Métis knowledge-keepers to identify which items in the collection belong to the Métis and to return them. "These artifacts were taken during eras of profound injustice. Their return is an essential step in advancing reconciliation and repairing the deep harms caused by colonial policies, including the role the Church played in the residential school system," she said. It's a message she'll take to Rome as she attends Pope Leo's inaugural mass on Sunday.
