An unsettling colonial collection: should the Vatican return items gifted to it from Indigenous peoples?
According to the Guardian, as Rome prepares to celebrate 400 years of St Peter's Basilica, a prized collection of artifacts acquired by Catholic missionaries is staying out of the spotlight. The Anima Mundi museum, formerly the Ethnological Museum in the Vatican, is home to around 80,000 objects from across the globe, many of which were 'gifted' to the Catholic church by Indigenous peoples when missionaries were powerful figures in far-flung communities. The origins of the collection lie in a 1925 event when Pope Pius XI asked Catholic missionaries worldwide to send cultural and sacred belongings to Rome for an exhibition. By November 1926, they became the core of a new Vatican Ethnological Museum, which was rebranded as Anima Mundi in 2019. Professor Gloria Bell, an art historian at McGill University in Montreal, called Anima Mundi an 'unsettling colonial collection' and stated she has seen evidence that missionaries looted graves in Canada. She rejected the narrative that everything was willingly gifted and called for more restitution work. The Vatican declined to be interviewed for the piece.