Jules Gomez interviewed Gloria Bell, author of “Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome,” who earlier called for the return of precious artifacts “stolen by Pope Pius XI and his missionaries” from Indigenous First Nations communities has urged Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican Museums to “rethink their colonial mindset.”
“Pope Francis made some promises to engage in restitution, but as of yet, nothing has happened.”
“The majority of the Indigenous arts collection, including sacred ancestors at ‘Anima Mundi,’ was amassed to please the greed of Pope Pius XI, who demanded everything and anything related to Indigenous life for his 1925 Vatican Missionary Exhibition.”
“Pope Leo could do the right thing by engaging in dialogue and restitution and working with Indigenous communities; a big step would be restituting Indigenous ancestors and belongings that are held like prisoners in the Vatican Museums’ Anima Mundi collection.”
In May, Victoria Pruden, president of the Métis National Council, attended Pope Leo’s inaugural Mass in Rome, asking the Vatican “to work with Métis knowledge-keepers, historians, and experts to identify which items in their collection belong to our people and to return them.”
The Vatican is also stalling on the return of 325 Ethiopian Orthodox manuscripts looted by the governor of Harar, Enrico Cerulli, during fascist Italy’s occupation of the East African nation from 1936 to 1942. The texts are currently stored in the Vatican Library.
The Vatican has also ignored multiple appeals for an apology for its complicity in the slaughter of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, even with mustard gas and the pillaging and destruction of thousands of churches in Ethiopia.
In 2022, Pope Francis ordered the Vatican Museums to return three Parthenon marbles to Greece. It clarified that the return was a spiritually motivated gift between the two churches, not a bilateral return between two states.
“The Vatican still hasn’t returned to the Jewish state a number of artifacts that belong to the Jewish people,” noted Tunisian-Israeli lawyer Michael Calvo, “including several books, manuscripts, Torah scrolls, Talmuds and one Temple candelabra given to Pope Innocent III.”
