The Repatriation of Indigenous Artifacts has a Date

 

 “In this year of Jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property.  When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another.  When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of years until the Jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop years. If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price, for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you.  You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

                   Leviticus 25: 13-17 NRSVue

We now know that the Roman Catholic church will fulfill a commitment made by the late Pope Francis to repatriate artifacts to Indigenous groups in what we call Canada. There is a specific date, December 6, and that initially they will go the Canadian Museum of History to be assessed for conservation purposes.

Bringing them home in 2025 is symbolically significant because many of them were sent to the Vatican as part of an exhibition of artifacts from around the world on the occasion of the Jubilee of 1925. Pope Pius XI wanted to organize in the Vatican a Missionary Exposition in order to illustrate the reach of the Catholic missions in the world and, at the same time, to make the cultural, artistic and spiritual traditions of all peoples known.There were more than 100,000 works on display, from all over the world, exhibited in twenty-six pavilions specially built for the occasion and more than a million people came to see them.

One of the challenges in repatriation is that the Roman Catholic church has insisted that these were gifts rather than plunder so should remain in the Anima Mundi (Soul of the World) museum. Of course we now know that missionary work by Christian entities was often soul-stealing, including the Residential Schools in Canada. Too often this was an extension of colonialization and the papal Doctrine of Discovery rather than sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Although the repatriation of these 62 items is welcome news, the process by which they will be returned has raised strong concerns amongst Indigenous groups.  This from a New York Times article:

Cody Groat, a Kanyen’kehaka member of the Six Nations of the Grand River and an assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at Western University in London, Ontario, said he was dismayed the Vatican is not transferring the items directly to Canada’s three main Indigenous groups.

Instead, it is giving them to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose senior leadership met with the Pope on Saturday. Ms. Napier said ownership of the items would belong to the bishops’ conference “very temporarily” and once they were returned to Canada they would be turned over to the Indigenous communities.“They don’t want this to be the Vatican repatriating directly to communities and they’ve never really articulated why,” Professor Groat said. “We’ve seen a lot of First Nations articulating that the Church wants to maintain power in this relationship.”He nevertheless called the planned transfer of the artifacts “consequential” and “meaningful.”

I heard an interview with Professor Groat this morning and felt that I was better informed about what has seemed like a positive intention made increasingly complex. For many Indigenous groups these are more than just historical artifacts, they are more like elders to be treated with reverence. I pray that there is a positive outcome. 

This too is a Jubilee year in the Roman Catholic church and the themes of restoring what was lost and setting free those who were enslaved are powerful. 

 When [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,  and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to set free those who are oppressed,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Luke 4: 16-19 NRSVue 

Pope Francis arrives for a pilgrimage at the Lac Saint Anne, Canada, on July 26, 2022. The Vatican on Thursday, March 30, 2023, responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property law today. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)