The Vatican on Saturday returned 62 artifacts connected to the Indigenous peoples of Canada to the country's Catholic bishops, offering what it called "a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity", a statement said.
Pope Leo gifted the objects to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops following a meeting with their representatives including their president, Bishop Pierre Goudreault, said Reuters.
"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.
Catholic missionaries sent the artifacts to Rome on the occasion of a 1925 exhibition held by Pope Pius XI that displayed more than 100,000 objects. Nearly half of them later formed a new Missionary Ethnological Museum and were transferred to the Vatican Museums in the 1970s.
In 2022, the late Pope Francis issued a historic apology to Canada's Indigenous peoples ahead of his visit to the country for the Catholic Church's role in residential schools where many children suffered abuse and were buried in unmarked graves.
The repatriation of the native artifacts held at the Vatican Museums was also part of the talks between the Church and the Indigenous leaders.
