Comments to The Associated Press were his first on the matter, as many museums in Europe and North America are rethinking their ethnographic and anthropological collections
Pope Francis said Sunday that talks were under way to return artifacts in the Vatican Museum that were acquired from Indigenous peoples in Canada and voiced a willingness to return other colonial-era objects in the Vatican’s collection on a case-by-case basis.
“In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t, if there are no possibilities – political, real or concrete possibilities. But in the cases where you can restitute, please do it. It’s good for everyone, so you don’t get used to putting your hands in someone else’s pockets.”
The Vatican insists the artifacts, including ceremonial masks, wampum belts and feathered headdresses, were gifts. But Indigenous scholars dispute whether Native peoples at the time could have freely offered their handicrafts given the power differentials at play in the colonial periods. “The restitution of the Indigenous things is under way with Canada – at least we agreed to do it,” Francis said, adding that the Holy See’s experience meeting with the Indigenous groups in Canada had been “very fruitful.”
“And If tomorrow the Egyptians come and ask for the obelisk, what will we do?” he said, chuckling, referring to the great obelisk that stands at the centre of St. Peter’s Square.
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