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The Vatican on Saturday returned 62 artifacts to Indigenous peoples from Canada as part of the Catholic Church’s reckoning with its role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas.

Pope Leo XIV personally handed over the items, along with supporting documentation, to representatives from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops during a special audience on Saturday.

In a joint statement, the Vatican and Canadian church described the gesture as a gift and a “concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity."

The objects are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum, which has long been at the centre of debates over the return of cultural property taken during colonial times.

Most of these items were sen

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