Pope voices willingness to return Indigenous loot, artifacts

Pope Francis said Sunday that talks were ongoing to return Vatican Museum treasures obtained from Indigenous peoples in Canada and that he would consider returning other colonial-era objects on a case-by-case basis.

“The Seventh Commandment comes to mind: If you steal something you have to give it back,” Francis said during an airborne press conference en route home from Hungary.

Francis restored three Parthenon sculptural fragments to Greece after two centuries in the Vatican Museums. The pope urged Sunday that museums should return items when feasible.

“If you can return things, make a gesture,” he advised. “If there are no political, real, or concrete possibilities, you can’t. Please restitute when possible. It’s healthy for everyone so you don’t grow used to putting your hands in someone else’s pockets.”

His first comments to The Associated Press came amid a reckoning for the colonial conquests of Africa, the Americas, and Asia and demands for war loot by the countries and communities of origin. Many museums in Europe and North America are rethinking their ethnographic and anthropological collections.
Catholic missionaries sent several Indigenous items and works of art to Rome for a 1925 Vatican gardens show.

The Vatican claims the masks, wampum belts, and feathered headdresses were presents. Indigenous historians argue that colonial power differentials prevented Native peoples from freely selling their products.

Francis, the first Latin American pope, knows history. He apologized to Indigenous peoples in Canada last year for Catholic missionary crimes at residential schools.

Indigenous communities visited the Vatican’s Anima Mundi exhibit before the visit, observed their ancestors’ creations, and showed desire in having more access to the collection and returning certain objects.

Francis noted that the Holy See’s meetings with Indigenous communities in Canada had been “very fruitful” and that the restitution of Indigenous things was ongoing with Canada.

Francis remembered wartime looting. “They took these decisions to take the good things from the other,” he remarked.

He added museums “have to make a discernment in each case” and should reclaim things when possible.

He laughed, referring to St. Peter’s Square’s massive obelisk.

The 2020 book “The Brutish Museums” chronicles the 1897 British sacking of the Royal Court of Benin City and the dissemination of its legendary Benin Bronzes to museums and collectors worldwide, including the Vatican Museums.

The Vatican is described in the appendix as a museum, gallery, or collection that “may” include Benin City loot from 1897.

Vatican Museums hasn’t responded to inquiries. “Contact in the Vatican is currently looking into the issue,” the Nigerian Embassy to the Holy See responded when contacted about the claim. ___

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