The Vatican Museums are home to some of the most magnificent artworks in the world, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to ancient Egyptian antiquities. But one of the museum’s least-visited collections is becoming its most contested before Pope Francis’ trip to Canada that begins Sunday (23 July).
This trip is aimed primarily at allowing the pope to apologise in person, on Canadian soil, for the abuses Indigenous people and their ancestors suffered at the hands of Catholic missionaries in notorious residential schools. So what are the groups demanding, and what do we know about the larger demand for returning items to colonised countries?
What are Canada’s indigenous groups demanding?
The Vatican’s Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum houses tens of thousands of artefacts and art made by Indigenous peoples from around the world, much of it sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries…
